Do something, please
Top UK business leaders representing 12 companies have written to the prime minister, Tony Blair, pushing for long-term policies to reduce CO2 emissions. The firms, with a combined turnover of more than 拢450 billion, want to avoid the 鈥渃atch 22鈥� of government being afraid of business reacting badly to CO2-curbing policies while businesses can鈥檛 justify low-carbon steps because of uncertainty over future policy.
Climate costs
Advertisement
Climate change will decrease food production in developing countries, according to a report by the UN鈥檚 Food and Agriculture Organization. In Africa, for example, the area of land with a growing season of less than 120 days due to lack of water will increase by 50 to 90 million hectares by 2080.
Shingles vaccine
People given an experimental vaccine against shingles had 51 per cent fewer outbreaks and the episodes were less painful. Drug company Merck has applied to market the vaccine in the US.
Too good to be true?
India, the country with the second largest number of HIV infections, claimed last week that new infections have dropped dramatically from 520,000 in 2003 to 28,000 in 2004. Some health workers and activists doubt the government鈥檚 numbers. But some WHO and UNAIDS officials believe the figure, arguing that a change in its estimation method was probably responsible for much of the apparent decline.
Galactic sprawl
The Andromeda galaxy, our nearest galactic neighbour, is three times as large as previously thought. Astronomers from the US, Europe and Australia used the Keck II telescope in Hawaii to show that outlying stars, presumed to be stragglers, are actually moving in lockstep with others in the galaxy. That makes it 220,000 light years across, compared with earlier estimates of about 75,000 light years.