BiotechMashup

Move over, Sunbelt. The New North is coming through, a geographer predicts in a new book. As worldwide population increases by 40 percent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets, Laurence C. Smith writes.

(University of California - Los Angeles) A majority of adults in California are obese or overweight and more than 2 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to a new study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Both conditions have increased significantly in just six years -- the prevalence of diabetes alone jumped 21 percent between 2001 and 2007. The "epidemic" of both obesity and diabetes leaves no racial, ethnic, economic or geographic segment of the state unscathed.

(University of California - Los Angeles) Global warming over the next 40 years will cut through the Arctic transportation networks like a double-edged sword, limiting access by land and vastly increasing it by sea, predicts a new study by UCLA geographers.

(University of California - Los Angeles) UCLA life scientists have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu.

(University of Adelaide) The world's last remaining "pristine" forest -- the boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada and other northern countries -- is under increasing threat, a team of international researchers has found.

(University of California - Los Angeles) The UCLA School of Public Health received a $10 million grant from the NIH to fund a partnership with USC and community collaborators. The goal is to reduce cardiovascular disease risk among Latinos in East LA where 96 percent of the population is of Mexican or Central American ancestry. This community experiences higher rates of obesity-related chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and stroke, especially in comparison to residents in other areas of Los Angeles.

(University of California - Davis) The impact of deforestation on global warming varies with latitude, according to new research from a team of scientists representing 20 institutions from around the world. The finding, which researchers say calls for new climate-monitoring strategies, will be published in the Nov. 17 issue of the journal Nature.

Scientists have used satellite data to confirm that more than 20 years of warming temperatures in northern Quebec, Canada, have resulted in an increase in the amount and extent of shrubs and grasses.

A common argument against global warming is that the climate has always varied. Temperatures rise sometimes and this is perfectly natural is the usual line. However, a climate researcher has now shown that global warming, i.e. simultaneous warming events in the northern and southern hemispheres, have not occurred in the past 20 000 years, which is as far back as it is possible to analyze with sufficient precision to compare with modern developments.