GM potatoes resist to blight



a variety of Desiree potatoes



A three-year trial has shown that these potatoes can thrive despite being exposed to late onset blight.Blight was is the disease that has plagued farmers for generations and it triggered the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. EU approval is needed before commercial cultivation of this GM crop can take place.

                                                        



                                                                       The research is published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.Potatoes are particularly vulnerable to late blight, a fungus-like organism that loves the damp and humid conditions that often occur during the growing season in Europe. The speed with which this infection takes hold and the devastating impacts on the crop make it the number one threat to six million tonnes of potatoes produced in the UK each year

UK weather: 100mph winds hit mainland england

Winds gusting over 100mph are lashing parts of the UK in what the assistant chief of the defence staff describes an "almost unparalleled natural crisis".It comes after the Met Office issues its first "red warning" of the winter, meaning there is a "risk to life", with widespread damage expected. 

Power to thousands of homes has been cut off and transport has been disrupted by the hurricane-force winds.Sixteen severe flood warnings remain for Berkshire, Surrey and Somerset.Assistant chief of the defence staff Major General Patrick Sanders, who is coordinating the armed forces response, described the floods as an "almost unparalleled natural crisis".

The British Prime Minister

In the Commons, David Cameron, The British Prime minister, repeated his pledge that "money is no object in this relief effort". He unveiled a package of measures to help businesses and homeowners repairing flood-damaged property to build in new defences and said small businesses affected by flooding would get 100% relief from business rates.

Bridwatchers asked to count birds and frogs

For the first time in its 35-year history the Big Garden Birdwatch is also recording mammals and amphibians.

The charity expects half a million people to take part in the survey, based on previous years, making it the world's largest wildlife count.

Many conservationists hope the additional data will help boost studies of the UK's garden species.
The bird charity has partnered with others
in the past on the Make Your Nature Count summer surveys, which ran between 2009 and 2012.

The counts attracted tens of thousands of recordings each year but the charity has set its sights even higher, with one survey encompassing both British birds and other common garden visitors: deer, squirrels, badgers, hedgehogs, frogs and toads.

China to spend £76bn to tackle air pollution

In an attempt to clean up the smoggy air in the Chinese capital, Beijing's authorities have introduced a new set of measures to cut emissions and allocated 760 billion yuan (£75.8 billion) to improve the city's air quality by 2017.

The new measures are part of Beijing's efforts to put in place a national plan introduced in September to reduce the country's dependence on coal in order to improve air quality. A number of China's cities are plagued with air quality problems, which has led to concerns about the environmental costs of the country's massive economic growth.

Last week, Beijing once again suffered hazardous levels of air pollution prompting the city's mayor to announce an "all-out effort" to tackle the smog. Residents were advised to stay indoors as levels of fine particulate pollution known as PM2.5 reached the highest in a year. Unhealthy and even hazardous levels of air pollution have become commonplace in Beijing and in 2013 the city endured a total of 189 polluted air days.

On the West Coast of the U.S., pollution blown in from China can account for 12 to 24 percent of sulfate concentrations on any given day, a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found. That pollution caused Los Angeles to experience an extra day of smog levels that were above the federal health standards for ozone in 2006.