Situation Report

Harvesting soybeans in Mato Grosso, Brazil.  Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CLICK HERE - STUDY - World Resources Institute - Creating a Sustainable Food Future

nytimes.com - by Brad Plumer - December 5, 2018

If the world hopes to make meaningful progress on climate change, it won’t be enough for cars and factories to get cleaner. Our cows and wheat fields will have to become radically more efficient, too.

That’s the basic conclusion of a sweeping new study issued Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group. The report warns that the world’s agricultural system will need drastic changes in the next few decades in order to feed billions more people without triggering a climate catastrophe.

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Recent reporting on how global warming is disrupting lives and livelihoods

irinnews.org

Warnings on the dire consequences of climate change in the coming years have been ramping up recently.

Hundreds of millions of people may be at risk of climate-related poverty, especially in developing countries, if the global economy does not cut greenhouse gas emissions, a UN report warned in October. It also noted that food shortages, fires, floods, and droughts would put ever larger numbers of lives and livelihoods at risk within the next 12 years. And in November scientists noted that the oceans have been warming at faster rates than previously thought – which could mean that coastal and island communities will experience greater flooding and storms will become fiercer, among other things.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - A revised airway epithelial hierarchy includes CFTR-expressing ionocytes

cysticfibrosisnewstoday.com - by Patricia Inacio - August 3, 2018

A previously undiscovered and rare type of cell has been identified in the tissue lining the airway of the lungs and carrying high levels of the CFTR gene, the mutation of which is the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis (CF), a study reports.

While the exact role of these cells, named “ionocytes” by the researchers, in CF is still unknown, the findings from this study highlight their potential as targets for future therapeutics.

The study, “A revised airway epithelial hierarchy includes CFTR-expressing ionocytes,” was published in the journal Nature . . .

 . . . “The data are starting to change the way we think about lung diseases like cystic fibrosis and asthma” . . .

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The Aquarius is operated by MSF and SOS Méditerranée Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images

Prosecutors allege garments on Aquarius should have been labelled as ‘toxic waste’

theguardian.com - by Lorenzo Tondo - November 20, 2018

Italian authorities have ordered the seizure of the migrant rescue ship Aquarius after claiming that discarded clothes worn by the migrants on their voyage from Libya to Italy could have been contaminated by HIV, meningitis and tuberculosis . . .

 . . . “Clothing categorically is not, and has never been, an HIV transmission risk,” said Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust.

“This would have stood out as ridiculous even amongst the misinformation of the 1980s, never mind in 2018. Migrants and people seeking asylum have historically been attacked using myths about HIV and infectious conditions, and we condemn this both for its stigmatising of people living with HIV and of migrants fleeing hardship.”