General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - August 2019

Aug 2019

Apr 20, 2021

Forgotten' Coffee Plant Rediscovered in West Africa

A forgotten coffee plant that can grow in warmer conditions - and which scientists say could help future-proof the drink against climate change - has been rediscovered in West Africa.
Coffea stenophylla is a wild coffee species from West Africa which, until recently, was thought to be extinct outside Ivory Coast.
The plant was rediscovered growing wild in Sierra Leone, where it was historically grown as a coffee crop about a century ago.
A small sample of coffee beans from Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast were roasted and made into coffee, which was then tasted by a panel of coffee connoisseurs.
They also modelled climate data for the plant, which suggests it can potentially tolerate temperatures at least 6C higher than Arabica.
Seedlings will be planted this year in order to start assessing the wild coffee's potential in safeguarding the future of high-quality coffee.

Apr 19, 2021

Godzilla Shark Discovered in New Mexico Gets Formal Name

The 300-million-year-old shark's teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species.
The ancient chompers looked less like the spear-like rows of teeth of related species. They were squatter and shorter, less than an inch long, around 2 centimeters.
"Great for grasping and crushing prey rather than piercing prey," said discoverer John-Paul Hodnett, who was a graduate student when he unearthed the first fossils of the shark at a dig east of Albuquerque in 2013.
Hodnett named the 6.7-foot (2 meter) monster Dracopristis hoffmanorum, or Hoffman's Dragon Shark, in honour of the New Mexico family that owns the land in the Manzano Mountains where the fossils were found.

Apr 16, 2021

Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Close to Tipping Point, Unmanned Sub Reveals

Thwaites Glacier, a gigantic ice shelf in West Antarctica, has been on climate scientists' radars for two decades now. But they didn't know just how fast the glacier was melting, and how close it was to complete collapse, until researchers sent an unmanned submarine below the ice shelf.
As one of Antarctica's fastest melting glaciers, Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the "Doomsday Glacier," has lost an estimated 595 billion tons (540 billion metric tons) of ice since the 1980s, contributing to a 4% rise in global sea levels since that time. The glacier acts like a cork in a wine bottle, stopping the rest of the ice in the region from flowing into the sea, so Thwaites Glacier's collapse could potentially take the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with it, causing a 10-foot (3 meter) rise in global sea levels.

Apr 15, 2021

Global Warming Making Indian Monsoon Seasons Stronger

Climate change will make summer monsoon rainfall in India stronger and more erratic, according to a study that predicts extremely wet years in the future, with potentially grave consequences for over a billion people's well-being, economy, food systems and agriculture.
The study compared more than 30 state-of-the-art climate models from all around the world.
For every degree of warming, monsoon rainfall will likely increase by about 5 per cent.
The researchers noted that more rainfall is not necessarily a good thing for the farming sector in India and its neighbouring countries.
This makes the Indian economy and food system highly sensitive to volatile monsoon patterns.

Apr 13, 2021

Five New Animal Species Discovered in Tibet

Five new animal species have been discovered in Tibet, including three kinds of frogs, one old-world monkey and a bushmaster snake, challenging the long-held view that the Himalayan mountains are a desolate and lifeless region.
The discovery of the five new species was the result of an eight-year investigation of the terrestrial wildlife in the Tibet Autonomous region carried out by the regional forestry bureau.
Covering an area of 6,346 sq km, this was a second such investigation carried out by the bureau.
The investigation also discovered 20 species that were not previously known to habitat in Tibet.

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