Feature Article

An enormous amount of funds (government, multilateral and non-government) flowed into the coastal areas hit by the tsunami of December 2004. But what has been the quality of rehabilitation and what lives do the survivors

Several countries have used fi nancial incentives to encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles with encouraging results. Now this approach has been suggested in a number of UK policy documents. But what is the evidence that it works? : a report.

The ongoing conflict between India's Maoist rebels and the government across states in the east and centre of the country has displaced thousands of people. Refugees living in camps and settlements face a multitude of health problems.

CLIMATE change is "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen". That is the view of no less an authority than Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, and he has a point. As long as the market exacts no penalties from companies or industries that emit the gases that are beginning to transform the planet's climate, it can do nothing to keep pollution in check as economies grow. So is there some way to fix the market so that it punishes polluters and encourages greener growth? (Editorial)

There's little doubt that free-market capitalism helped to get us into the mess we're in. As Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, puts it: climate change is "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen". The question now is whether capitalism is able to make amends. Can it provide a mechanism that rewards people for reducing their carbon emissions instead of increasing them? Or will it simply give big polluters a way of dodging their responsibilities?

Lean times lie ahead for fishermen in California and Oregon. Last week, US regulators decided to cancel the entire salmon season for this year. The long-term prospects for the salmon themselves are unclear. In the long term, however, the future of the salmon, and the people that rely on them, may depend on climate change.

Let's hear it for Tanzania. Despite being one of the world's poorest nations, it has become a role model in how to reach global targets for reducing death rates of children and mothers - putting most of its poor African neighbours to shame. So says the World Health Organization.

They call it flammable ice, and it could be the world's last great source of carbon-based fuel - assuming we can mine methane hydrates, crystal lattices of ice that trap methane beneath ocean beds and permafrost. One problem with extracting this methane is that you have to melt the ice to bring the gas to the surface. In 2002, a team of geologists from Canada and Japan tried injecting hot water into the ice beneath the delta of the McKenzie river in northern Canada. While this released some hydrates, it used a lot of energy.

Ocean acidification in response to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures is widely expected to reduce calcification by marine organisms. From the mid-Mesozoic, coccolithophores have been major calcium carbonate producers in the world's oceans, today accounting for about a third of the total marine CaCO3 production. Here, the researchers present laboratory evidence that calcification and net primary production in the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi are significantly increased by high CO2 partial pressures.

Mercury is a persistent contaminant that biomagnifies up the food web, causing mortality, reproductive failure, and other health effects in predatory wildlife and humans. From 1930 to 1950, industrial mercuric sulfate entered the South River, a tributary of the Shenandoah River in Virginia (United States). To determine whether this mercury concentration had moved into the adjacent terrestrial food web, the researchers anlayzed total mercury concentrations in blood from adults of 13 terrestrial feeding bird species breeding within 50 m of the river.