English

The federally threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii) has disappeared from much of its range for unknown reasons. We mapped 237 historic locations for the species and determined their current population status. Using a geographic information system (GIS), we determined latitude, elevation, and land use attributes for all sites and analyzed the spatial pattern of declines. We then compared the observed patterns of decline to those predicted by the climate change, UV-B radiation, pesticides, and habitat alteration hypotheses for amphibian decline. Declines were not consistent with the climate change hypothesis but showed a strong positive association with elevation, percentage upwind agricultural land use, and local urbanization.

"There is a recent report from the policy department of the European Parliament, published last month. It is entitled: Existing Scientific Evidence of the Effects of Neonicotinoid Pesticides on Bees and it gives a very up-to-date picture of current research. It has 48 references to scientific papers, mostly published between 2009 and 2012. These describe the evidence on which the descriptions of the effects on bees, including bumblebees, of low doses of what I am going to call "NNs" are based. The case seems to be clear that the use of these chemicals should be reduced and/or further controlled. Those that are shown to be most damaging should be banned. There is enough evidence, I feel."

Recently, several sources have suggested that Eastern Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula) have declined over a substantial portion of their range in the southeastern United States, particularly in Florida. However, published evidence for L. getula declines or their potential causes are limited. We monitored the status of a population of L. getula on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina, USA, from 1975 to 2006. Herpetofaunal populations on the Savannah River Site have been protected from the pressures of collecting and development since 1951 due to site access restrictions. Here, we document a decline in both abundance and body condition of L. getula
inhabiting the vicinity of a large isolated wetland over the past three decades. Because this L. getula population was protected from anthropogenic habitat degradation, collection, and road mortality, we are able to exclude these factors as possible causes of the documented decline.

Several species of anuran amphibians have undergone drastic population declines in the western United States over the last 10 to 15 years. In California, the most severe declines are in the Sierra Mountains east of the Central Valley and downwind of the intensely agricultural San Joaquin Valley. In contrast, coastal and more northern populations across from the less agrarian Sacramento Valley are stable or declining less precipitously. In this article, we provide evidence that pesticides are instrumental in declines of these species.

Virtually every past civilization has eventually undergone collapse, a loss of socio-political-economic complexity usually accompanied by a dramatic decline in population size. Some, such as those of Egypt and China, have recovered from collapses at various stages; others, such as that of Easter Island or the Classic Maya, were apparently permanent. All those previous collapses were local or regional; elsewhere, other societies and civilizations persisted unaffected. Sometimes, as in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, new civilizations rose in succession. In many, if not most, cases, overexploitation of the environment was one proximate or an ultimate cause. But today, for the first time, humanity's global civilization — the worldwide, increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded — is threatened with collapse by an array of environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’, facing what the UK's Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems.

India is going to be hit by cancer of the urinary bladder and kidney in an epidemic form due to constant rise in pollution of rivers and groundwater due to presence of insecticides and chemicals, said eminent surgeon and FRCR, Dr Ashok Tahiliani after returning from attending a treatment workshop at Causeway hospital, United Kingdom. During his stay there he was involved in the treatment of bladder cancer, prostate cancer and patients with difficult urinary stone diseases. In India cases of urinary bladder cancer and prostrate cancer have increased. In the west, cancer of prostrate is the most common cancer and has surpassed lung cancer. He suggested that it is therefore very necessary that the various rivers and environment should be cleaned.

It has become increasingly difficult for people to get reliable and critical scientific information for deciding not only which technologies to adopt, but more importantly, which scientific research to support on the basis of social, ethical, environmental and aesthetic merit. There is a widespread and mistaken assumption that science is neutral or ‘value-free’ and hence beyond reproach, so it is only the technology arising from the science that can be good or bad. Science, as opposed to religious dogma, is not about certainties; it is changing all the time. But, as in any other field of human endeavour, the status quo tends to hang on for far too long, because of vested interests in huge profits, top jobs, big research grants, and personal prestige and reputation. It is incredibly hard for new findings and new ideas to get a hearing in the wider scientific community, or for old, discredited theories to die. And all the more so when the old guard are backed by big corporations that have taken over every sector of society including our most sacred and revered academic institutions. Corporate interests have so thoroughly infiltrated our academic institutions that scientists are no longer free to work for the public good or tell the truth, or do anything new and exciting. Honest scientists who insist on doing so are persecuted and victimised, and by their own academic institutions that should be protecting and defending them.