Reports

About 166 million people in 22 countries are suffering chronic hunger or difficulty finding enough to eat as a result of protracted food crises. Wars, natural disasters and poor government institutions are exacerbating this state of undernourishment. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said these countries are in what is termed a protracted crisis and said assistance should be refocused for countries around the world suffering from double and triple shocks. Chronic hunger and food...

Global environmental damage resulting from human activity resulted in an economic cost of $6.6 trillion during 2008, equivalent to 11 percent of global GDP. By 2050, this annual amount is expected to jump to $28 trillion (18 percent of GDP). The grim numbers come from a study released Wednesday by the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and UNEP Finance Initiative. The most environmentally damaging business sectors have been identified as utilities; oil and gas producers; and...

A "hidden" language spoken by less than 1,000 people has been discovered in Arunachal Pradesh by researchers who at first thought they were documenting a dialect of the Aka culture, a tribal community that subsists on farming and hunting. But they found an entirely different vocabulary and linguistic structure. Even the speakers of the tongue, called Koro, did not realise they had a distinct language, linguist K David Harrison said Tuesday. Culturally, the Koro speakers are part of the Aka...

A woman was injected with HIV-infected blood by two of her daughters who were after her property. Bharathi, a 59-year-old woman who lives in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, has now fallen ill and been admitted to a hospital. One of the two daughters works as a nurse in the same hospital, and she allegedly injected the HIV-infected blood into her mother. After a while, Bharathi's condition worsened and she was admitted to another hospital where the doctors confirmed she was infected...

Hindustani classical vocals and Western classical singing, such as the music of Puccini, Mozart and Wagner, vary greatly in technique and sound. Now, speech-language pathology researchers at the University of Missouri are comparing the two styles in hopes of finding a treatment for laryngeal tremors, a vocal disorder associated with many neurological disorders that can result in severe communication difficulties. Sound is developed in the larynx, an organ located in the neck. A laryngeal or...

Almost a third of Muslim women in the US who wear hijabs (headscarves) are concerned about applying for work, researchers have found. Almost two-thirds say they are aware of instances where women wearing hijabs have been refused work. Professor Sonia Ghumman from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Shidler College of Business and Professor Linda A Jackson from Michigan State University recently examined the expectations that women who wear hijabs have regarding their employment opportunities...

British scientist Robert Edwards, who helped revolutionise the treatment of human infertility, has won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has announced. Edwards, 85, won the prestigious prize for his work on in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), which has helped millions of infertile couples to have a child. "His contributions represent a milestone in the development of modern medicine," the Nobel Assembly at the Swedish...

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed part of a 3,000-year-old granite double statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun. The statue has been excavated at Kom El-Hittan on the west bank of Luxor. "The statue is one of the best new finds in the area because of its expert craftsmanship, which reflect the skills of the ancient Egyptian artisans," Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), announced on his...

An alliance of conservationists and international donors have unveiled a map of six priority areas on the Mediterranean rim aimed at guiding policy for preserving precious habitats and threatened species. The 251-page ecosystem profile was launched last week by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), whose constituents include the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, and Conservation International...

A good 15 years later, it still remains bad news for women. Women constituted less than a quarter (22 per cent) of the people heard or read about in the news (i.e., as news subjects) across all topic categories in India. Only 12 per cent of news stories have women as the central focus (i.e. focussed specifically on one or more women). If that's not enough, only 5 per cent of the news stories highlight gender equality or inequality. Worse still, nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of the news stories...