by Tom Bosschaert
Director

Sept. 9, 2014

Tom Bosschaert

An insightful infographic visualizes our wasteful food habits, 22% of our global energy demand is renewable, and Russia's 'sex geckos' die on space mission. Read all about it in this Wormfood.

Global News: Stop wasting food

  • Every year, the planet loses nearly a third of its food—a staggering 1.4 billion tons. This infographic shows what food is thrown away, in which quantities, and what we can do about it.

  • Rampant trash-burning is throwing more pollution and toxic particles into the air than governments are reporting, according to a scientific study estimating more than 40 percent of the world's garbage is burned.

  • Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 2012 and 2013 grew at their fastest rate since 1984. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says that it highlights the need for a global climate treaty.

Energy & Environment: 22% renewable energy

  • Hydro, wind, solar and other renewable power capacity grew at its strongest ever pace last year and now produces 22% of the world's electricity, the International Energy Agency said in a new report.

  • Millions of dead fish surfaced in a lake in Mexico. It’s still unclear what killed the fish, but the incident is the worst in a spate of environmental disasters in Mexico this year. Early last month, a river in the northern state of Sonora took on a sickly brown-red color after workers from a nearby mine dumped thousands of gallons of sulfuric acid into the water. In Veracruz state, near the Gulf of Mexico, a gasoline spill contaminated almost 5 miles of a small river near the town of Tierra Blanca. And last Thursday, the Pacific coast of Sinaloa state also saw a sudden and seemingly inexplicable mountain of dead fish rise to the surface.

  • This open source tree map calculates the economic benefits and environmental impacts of trees. Based on a tree’s species and diameter, the calculations provide a clear picture of the positive impact that trees have on our air, water, and quality of life.

Business & Economy: Safe gambling

  • Prize-linked savings program ‘Save to Win’ links saving to the excitement of gambling to motivate saving behavior.

  • Bankers and U.S. officials have warned that cyber-terrorists will try to wreck the financial system’s computer networks.

  • Advertising Standards Authority rules Peabody’s ‘clean coal’ ad misleading. Peabody advertised coal to developing nations with the headline “Let’s brighten the many faces of global energy poverty”. The one thing that Peabody Energy omitted to say is that coal is one of the world’s dirtiest mainstream energy fuels for power generation.

Science, Technology & Design: Supersonic submarine

  • China has moved a step closer to creating a supersonic submarine that could travel from Shanghai to San Francisco in less than two hours.

  • Just as our solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy, a team of astronomers argue that the Milky Way belongs to a massive cluster of galaxies it calls Laniakea.

  • NASA is developing a space submarine to explore ocean waters on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

Urban Environment: Copyright stops oil pipeline

  • Alberta artist, Peter von Tiesenhausen, has effectively stopped oil corporations from putting a pipeline through his 800 acre property by covering it with artwork and copyrighting the top six inches of his land as an artwork.

  • Fukushima’s nuclear disaster has caused genetic damage, a decline in the population and other changes to non-human organisms from plants to butterflies to birds in the area, US and Japanese scientists say.

  • A new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed that ancient human footprints found in a Romanian cave and initially believed to be 10,000 to 15,000 years old, are actually more than 35,000 years old.

Unexpected and Intriguing: Wild cat catches rides on rhinos

  • These camera trap pictures show a wild cat catching rides on the backs of buffalos and white rhinos.

  • Russia's 'sex geckos' die on space mission. The purpose of the mission was to observe if the geckos could or would reproduce in space. A swarm of fruit flies also aboard Foton-M4 did survive the trip. They reproduced and bore offspring.

  • Middle East TV stations poke fun at Islamic State.

This bi-weekly digest is assembled from items sent to us by Except members. Have questions, comments, or news items to suggest? E-mail merel.segers@except.nl. Read past Wormfood global news reports here.

Sept. 9, 2014