In The News

Asia Times: China’s Monkey Business Starts Cloning Controversy

Gordon Waits January 25, 2018
Chinese researchers have cloned two macaque monkeys, using the technique that created Dolly the sheep in 1996 – somatic cell nuclear transfer. The research follows the 1999 cloning of a rhesus money in Oregon, using embryo splitting. Such studies could pave the way for human cloning. Monkeys and humans are primates which both form strong family and social bonds. A goal of the research in China is...

CNN: Black Death Spread by Humans, Vindicating Rats

Meera Senthilingam January 17, 2018
“Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas,” reports the World Health Organization. “It is transmitted between animals through fleas. Humans can be infected through.” The Black Death pandemic occurring sporadically from the 14th to 19th centuries was not spread by rats, as once assumed, but through...

Yes Magazine: We Can Choose Good Globalization

David Korten December 26, 2017
Globalization is a tool like the pen and, as such, can be used for worthy or terrible purposes, as YaleGlobal has noted in the past. David Korten, writing for Yes, points out that globalization’s definitions vary and can influence levels of support for the age-old phenomenon. YaleGlobal simply defines globalization as the connections of our world through people, products, ideas and more. Korten...

The Guardian: Global Pollution Threatens Human Survival

Damian Carrington October 20, 2017
Humans tend to ignore threats that are slow emerging or ubiquitous – and pollution is such a threat. “Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world,” writes Damian Carrington for the Guardian. He describes a report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. “[T]he true total could be millions higher because the...

The Globe and Mail: China Used Research Mission to Test Trade Route Through Canada’s Northwest Passage

Robert Fife and Steven Chase September 13, 2017
China used a research icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, to check if Chinese cargo ships could rely on Canada’s Northwest Passage rather than the Panama Canal, reducing delivery time by 20 percent. The report came from Xinhau News Agency, which “also reported that China sent six merchant ships through Russia's Northeast Passage this summer as the world's second-largest economy hopes to take...

EOS: USGS Library Cuts Would Harm Research, Education

Kimberly M. S. Cartier September 3, 2017
An austere US budget proposal targets education, research and programs that analyze climate change. “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, home to one of the largest Earth and natural science collections in the world, faces a 52% funding decrease in the fiscal year (FY) 2018 federal budget proposed by President Donald Trump,” reports Kimberly M. S. Cartier for EOS Earth & Space Science...

The New York Times: Hurricane Harvey Was No Surprise

Noah S. Diffenbaugh August 29, 2017
The slow-moving disaster of Hurricane Harvey for the Houston area shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The US National Weather Service was accurate in forecasting the slow-moving storm with heavy rain, and researchers around the globe have long warned about the risks of climate change, including increased precipitation. But many in the United States, especially those living in fossil-fuel production...