EARTH CHANGES

Aral catastrophe recorded in DNA

Fresh fears have been raised about the health of populations living near the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia.
A new study has now found high levels of DNA damage that could explain the region's abnormally high cancer rates.
This comes as the latest estimates say the Aral Sea is receding so rapidly it could vanish within the next 15 years.
Once the world's fourth largest inland body of water, the sea has been drained by a poorly managed irrigation system that supplies water to cotton crops.

Rice yields dip as planet warms

There is a strong link between increasing night temperatures and decreasing rice yields
Global warming could have a severe effect on rice production, say scientists working in the Philippines.
The researchers studied 12 years of rice yields and 25 years of temperature data, to work out how they are linked.
Yields dropped by 10% for each degree of warming, an alarming trend since rice is the staple diet for most of the world's expanding population, they say.