Feature Article

High gasoline prices could lead to a dramatic saving in US greenhouse-gas emissions. That's the conclusion of economists in the US, who suggest high fuel prices are turning consumers off SUVs and onto smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. What's more, car owners are predicted to cut back on driving in order to save money. Together, these changes in consumer behaviour could make an important dent in the US contribution to global warming, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tonnes per year.

On Oct 17, 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates called for complete eradication to be adopted as the new goal for the age-old fight against malaria, with the Director General of WHO, Margaret Chan, promptly echoing their conviction. Although debate over the wisdom of this target will continue, growing impatience with the low ambitions of current efforts, fuelled by reductions in morbidity and mortality in some countries and progress in the development of new drugs and the first-ever vaccine, will lead many decision makers to adopt eradication of malaria as the primary aim for their organisations.

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told a Congressional hearing that it believes a contaminant found in batches of heparin, which have killed at least 81 patients, might have been deliberately added. The source of the contaminant

Need for identification and value assessment of agro-biodiversity heritage sites in the context of recent Acts has been highlighted to facilitate conservation and evolution of sustainable agriculture.

Rapid climate change has been implicated as a cause of evolution in poorly adapted populations. However, phenotypic plasticity provides the potential for organisms to respond rapidly and effectively to environmental change.

It has been widely hypothesized that a warmer climate in Greenland would increase the volume of lubricating surface meltwater reaching the ice-bedrock interface, accelerating ice flow and increasing mass loss. We have assembled a data set that provides a synoptic-scale view, spanning ice-sheet to outlet-glacier flow, with which to evaluate this hypothesis.

A continuous lake record elucidates how Saharan climate changed gradually from humid to today's desert conditions.

Researchers in the emerging field of wildlife reintroduction battle hawks, habitat loss, and poachers to give animals a second chance.

Officials in southern China's Guizhou Province are hoping to head off future attempts at "biopiracy"--the plunder of natural resources--by enshrining the protection of indigenous knowledge into law.