Close encounters of the fungal kind: from the hallucinogenic to the hideous – Richard Fortey covers the strange with science
This new climate language will become mainstream in 2025. In her policy plans for her second term aspPresident of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen pledged not to work to lower EU emissions, but to “continue to bring down energy prices by moving further away from fossil fuels.” The new UK government wants to make sure it doesn’t get license for coal or oil exploration in the future. And in France, Macron has explicitly vowed to end fossil-fuel use entirely.
According to Nicholas Money, Richard Fortey does mycology a great service by covering the strange with science in Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind. “The book is full of evocative descriptions born from deep personal experience”, says Money, as Fortey takes a break from his usual field of palaeontology to share his love of fungi and take the reader on a guided tour of the world’s mushrooms, “from the hallucinogenic to the hideous”.
Life at the heart of an outbreak: the story of Jean Pierre Sibomana, a Rwandan physician and astronomer living with broken hearts
Heat exposure raises the risks of preterm birth, stillbirths, congenital anomalies and obstetric complications. There were many studies that were analysed in the largest systematic review of its kind. There was a 4% increase in risk of premature birth for every 1 C increase in heat exposure. During a heatwave, the chance of preterm birth increased by 26%. “Protecting the health of pregnant women and newborns must become a priority in our response to climate change,” said physician-scientist and review co-author Darshnika Lakhoo in a statement.
When intensive-care physician Jean Pierre Sibomana was faced with two young patients displaying signs of haemorrhagic fever, he had to make an incredibly difficult choice: to diagnose Rwanda’s first confirmed outbreak of Marburg virus disease. He wrote in a powerful first-hand account of his experience that he knew the diagnosis could have profound political and economic implications. He and his colleagues were isolated from outsiders and battled a disease with an expected fatal rate of more than 90 percent. There were two doctors and many nurses dead. We cared for our patients with broken hearts and mourned them every day while we were gone.
An astronomer namedDesiree Cotto-Figueora is involved in NASA’s Near- Earth Object Surveyor mission, which seeks to spot big near- Earth asteroids. She started an astronomy club at high school and visited nearby observatories. “I don’t think that high-school girl would ever have imagined that one day she’d be working on a NASA mission.”
Source: Daily briefing: ‘We mourned together every day’: life at the heart of an outbreak
Humour can help us cope with stress: The example of Bakhtar Babayev, COP29 president, and the Middle East Eye
Clinical psychologist Steven Sultanoff explains how, when used appropriately, humour can be an effective way to cope with stress. The 4 minute read is from Scientific American.
• COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s ecology and natural resources minister, who faced criticism for his career at the country’s state-owned oil company, among other things, argues that Western nations stood in the way of a better deal. He writes that if others did the same, the Chinese were willing to offer more. 5 min read by The Guardian.
• Representatives of many of the poorer countries at the heart of this year’s agreement say it is woefully insufficient and was pushed through by the big players. In the end, for the sake of multilateralism,Developed nations always throw text at us at the last minute, shove it down our throat and then we have to accept it. 6 min read by The Guardian.
I am not as hopeful as I could be. Jane Austen’s words come to mind as delegates recover from a marathon negotiation that brought to a close the 29th United Nation’s annual climate conference (COP29).
The effort led by Saudi Arabia failed because it was not able to backtrack from last year’s breakthrough pledge. The issue was not talked about until next year. The Middle East Eye takes 1 min to read.
The previous climate financing target of $100 billion per year didn’t go into effect until 2020, but the new deal increases it to $125 billion per year by 2020. (Nature | 10 min read, from 2021)