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Safety examinations on 20 kinds of herbal teas showed that nine kinds of chrysanthemum drinks contained pesticide residue, with eight of them exceeding regulated safety limits, the Consumers’ Foundation said yesterday, urging consumers not to drink the first infusion of tea. The foundation purchased 20 kinds of herbal teas, including nine chrysanthemum teas, three rose teas, three lavender teas, two chamomile teas and three herb teas with dried berries, from various stores in Taipei City and New Taipei City (新北市) and had them tested for heavy metal, sulfur dioxide and pesticide residues in July. A total of 18 kinds of pesticide residues were found, including carbendazim, dimethomorph and imidacloprid, which are often used on food products, the foundation said, adding that difenoconazole and flusiconazole, which are prohibited on spice and other herbal plants, were also found.

Evidence from around the world points to falling and increasingly unpredictable yields of insect-pollinated crops, particularly in the areas with the most intensive farming. Where crops are grown in vast fields, there are not enough insects to go around. If insecticides are sprayed too frequently, then vital pollinators cannot survive. The most dramatic example comes from the apple and pear orchards of south west China, where wild bees have been eradicated by excessive pesticide use and a lack of natural habitat. In recent years, farmers have been forced to hand-pollinate their trees, carrying pots of pollen and paintbrushes with which to individually pollinate every flower, and using their children to climb up to the highest blossoms. This is clearly just possible for this high-value crop, but there are not enough humans in the world to pollinate all of our crops by hand. Without bees, our diets would be depressingly poor. We would be forced to survive on wind-pollinated crops; wheat, barley and corn, and little else. Imagine shops without raspberries, apples, strawberries, peas, beans, courgettes, melons, tomatoes, blueberries, pumpkins and much more. Bees and other insects have provided free pollination for our crops for millennia. They will continue to do so if we learn to recognise their importance and return the favour by providing them with what they need to survive.

Pesticides used in farming are also killing worker bumblebees and damaging their ability to gather food, meaning colonies that are vital for plant pollination are more likely to fail when they are used, a study showed on Sunday. British scientists said they exposed colonies of 40 bumblebees, which are bigger than the more common honeybee, to the pesticides neonicotinoid and pyrethroid over four weeks at levels similar to those in fields. "Chronic exposure ... impairs natural foraging behavior and increases worker mortality, leading to significant reductions in brood development and colony success," the scientists wrote in the report in the journal Nature on Sunday. Exposure to a combination of the two pesticides "increases the propensity of colonies to fail", according to the researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The European Food Safety Authority has defended its independence from the biotech industry following renewed accusations from environmentalists that the EU agency ignores evidence of the potential health risks of genetically modified products. Tipping off the accusations was a study by the University of Caen, published last month, which found that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 - a maize seed variety doused with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide - or given water with Roundup at levels permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard diet. The EU food agency’s initial review said the analysis contained in the study, led by biologist Gilles-Éric Séralini, was insufficient and asked for additional evidence. EFSA Executive Director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle told journalists in Brussels on Friday (12 October) that EFSA's review had been conducted by seven to eight people and was also backed by the Dutch and German risk assessment authorities. "This is about the quality of scientific data. The data you are using should respect good scientific standard. The debate has sometimes been a bit too emotional," she said. EFSA's executive director added that she believes the debate has been specifically fierce this time, due to the photos published by the Caen researchers showing rats with tumours and abnormal organs.

The fungal infection that has killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University researchers. High levels of an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs' sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.

Beekeepers and advocates met in Palmer Square on Sunday to petition for Gov. Christie’s help in suspending a certain class of harmful pesticides, which they say are killing over 30 percent of their honeybee hives. ”It is now clear that this is what is causing distress to the bees,” said Lorie Van Auken, a beekeeper from East Brunswick. This “distress” is known as Colony Collapse Disorder, and, according to Ms. Van Auken, was first noticed in 2006 when commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg came back to the hive to find that 80 percent of his bees were gone. ”The bees drop dead at the site of pollination,” she said. Because neonicotinoids are a neurotoxin, they interfere with the bees’ ability to navigate back to the hive. They also lower the insects’ immunity to other diseases. ”We’re not saying don’t use pesticides at all, just stop using these,” said Maria Concilio, a beekeeper from South Orange. Gov. Christie has seemed receptive to the beekeepers’ concerns so far. In August, he wrote a letter thanking them for their work, and acknowledging its importance to the state’s economy. ”We can’t imagine that he won’t take notice of this issue in the Garden State,” said Ms. Van Auken. “This is what New Jersey is known for.”

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has announced it is studying 120 arable sites in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk in conjunction with the RSPB. Findings will be passed on to the government to help guide conservation. The GWCT said the number of lapwings had halved in the last 30 years. Dr Andrew Hoodless, a wader scientist with GWCT, said: "Lapwings are very adaptable birds and because they nest on wet grassland, upland moors or arable land they should be doing quite well, but they are not. "We know that the problem is not over-winter survival, but that the lapwings are simply not fledging sufficient chicks each year to maintain a stable population."

Interest in the potential involvement of nicotinic cholinergic systems in ADHD has arisen in part from the observation that adolescents and adults with ADHD smoke cigarettes at significantly higher rates than people without this disorder. In this review, we describe the evidence for a role of central nicotinic cholinergic systems in cognitive deficits in ADHD. We also propose mechanisms by which alterations in cholinergic function may contribute directly and/or indirectly to these deficits. Finally, we identify specific paradigms and models to guide future investigations into the specific involvement of nicotinic cholinergic systems in ADHD, possibly leading to the development of more effective pharmacotherapies for ADHD.

The latest counts collected by Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) volunteers reveal the continuation of a sharp drop in the number of Oystercatchers wintering in Scotland. Having steadily increased during the 1980s and 1990s, numbers of Oystercatchers wintering in Scotland have declined at an even more rapid rate in the last ten years. The declines in Oystercatcher numbers include the most important sites in Scotland, such as the Solway Estuary, where the peak count of just over 21,000 birds in 2010/11 was the lowest for 25 years. Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) and Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) are now at an all-time low across the UK as a whole having declined by 25% in the last 25 years.

Influencing policy in the European Union without the need to become an elected politician is the hallmark of a good lobbyist. Brussels is known to be rife with industry specialists, or ‘public affairs professionals’, seeking to water down legislative proposals which might harm business interests. Farmers make up a strong lobby and wherever there are farmers there are corporations, producers of agri-chemicals, biotechnology and so forth. After the collapse of a bee colony was linked to a widely used pesticide, the French government introduced a ban on its use. The French health and safety agency ANSES reacted strongly to the presence of a sub-lethal dose of a molecule which appeared to confuse bees and disrupt the hive. Swiss corporation Syngenta was given two weeks to prove that the neonicotinoid pesticide Cruiser was not behind the bee colony collapse. The corporation denied that its pesticides had anything to do with it. The presence of certain Members of the European Parliament at corporate lobbying events has not gone unnoticed.