Reflections for a New Year
By Roberto SavioROME, Jan 3 2020 (IPS) In a world shaken by so many problems, it is difficult to look at 2020 and not make some kind of holistic analysis. While enormous progress has been made on many fronts, it is clear that the tide has turned, and we are now entering – or have already entered – a new low point in the history of humankind..
Roberto SavioToday, we face an unprecedented existential threat brought about by the climate crisis. According to scientists, we have until 2030 to stop climate change, after which human conditions will be under several threats. Yet, we have just had a world conference in Madrid ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - January 3, 2020 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Roberto Savio Tags: Climate Change Democracy Economy & Trade Education Environment Featured Financial Crisis Gender Global Headlines Health Human Rights LGBTQ Migration & Refugees Poverty & SDGs Religion TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news
Costa Rica's president says therapeutic abortions will be allowed
Costa Rica's President Carlos Alvarado on Thursday issued a technical decree that will allow for therapeutic abortions in the Central American nation, despite opposition from religious and conservative political groups. (Source: Reuters: Health)
Source: Reuters: Health - December 13, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: healthNews Source Type: news
What We Can Learn From the Near-Death of the Banana
The banana has been the subject of Andy Warhol’s cover art for the Velvet Underground’s debut album, can arguably be the most devastating item in the Mario Kart video game franchise and is one of the world’s most consumed fruits. And humanity’s love of bananas may still be on the rise, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On average, says Chris Barrett, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University, citing that U.N. data, every person on earth chows down on 130 bananas a year, at a rate of nearly three a week.
But the banana as we know it may also b...
Source: TIME: Science - November 18, 2019 Category: Science Authors: Anna Purna Kambhampaty Tags: Uncategorized Agriculture Source Type: news
Study: After trade deal, unhealthy foods flowed into Central America, Dominican Republic
(University at Buffalo) The study analyzes the availability of non-nutritious food in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in the years after the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) was signed between those countries and the US, going into effect in 2006. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - November 13, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: news
UK and US place have fewer doctors than Costa Rica, Lithuania and Russia
A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revealed that Greece, Austria and Portugal have the most doctors per head among developed countries. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - November 7, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Italy ’s Olive-Oil Industry Sees Simmering Threats from Climate Change and Nasty Bacteria
By Eric RegulyROME, Nov 6 2019 (IPS) On a warm Saturday morning in late October, the silver-green leaves of the 200 productive olive trees on a rolling country property in Umbria, in central Italy, sparkled in the brilliant sun. Fausto Venturi, a local farmer who devotes autumn weekends to making olive oil, could not have been happier.
The weather was perfect for harvesting the Moraiolo olives. The small, round green fruit is indigenous to Umbria and Tuscany, prized by olive growers for its high yield and among connoisseurs for the oil’s gorgeous emerald-green colour and fruity aroma, with hints of artichokes and herbs....
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - November 6, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Eric Reguly Tags: Climate Change Development & Aid Europe Featured Food & Agriculture Headlines Health TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news
These U.N. Climate Scientists Think They Can Halt Global Warming for $300 Billion. Here ’s How
$300 billion. That’s the money needed to stop the rise in greenhouse gases and buy up to 20 years of time to fix global warming, according to United Nations climate scientists. It’s the gross domestic product of Chile, or the world’s military spending every 60 days.
The sum is not to fund green technologies or finance a moonshot solution to emissions, but to use simple, age-old practices to lock millions of tons of carbon back into an overlooked and over-exploited resource: the soil.
“We have lost the biological function of soils. We have got to reverse that,” said Barron J. Orr, lead scientis...
Source: TIME: Science - October 24, 2019 Category: Science Authors: Adam Majendie and Pratik Parija / Bloomberg Tags: Uncategorized Bloomberg climate change onetime overnight Source Type: news
Nine Latin American and Caribbean countries adopt the ‘San José Commitment’ on the rights of people of African descent
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – This Friday, representatives of nine governments in Latin America and the Caribbean adopted adeclaration to accelerate the fulfilment of the rights of people of African descent in the region. (Source: UNFPA News)
Source: UNFPA News - October 18, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: UNFPA - United Nations Population Fund Source Type: news
Venom characterization of the bark scorpion Centruroides edwardsii (Gervais 1843): Composition, biochemical activities and in vivo toxicity for potential prey - D íaz C, Rivera J, Lomonte B, Bonilla F, Diego-Garcia E, Camacho E, Tytgat J, Sasa M.
In this study, we characterize the venom of Centruroides edwardsii, one of the most abundant scorpions in urban and rural areas of Costa Rica, in terms of its biochemical constituents and their biological activities. C. edwardsii venom is rich in peptides ... (Source: SafetyLit)
Source: SafetyLit - October 7, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Non-Human Animals and Insects Source Type: news
A New World? Are the Americas Returning to Old Problems?
By Jan LundiusSTOCKHOLM / ROME, Sep 12 2019 (IPS) When I in 1980 first arrived in America it was a new world to me. I went from New York to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and like so many visitors and migrants before me I was overwhelmed by both familiar and strange impressions. Familiar due to books I had read and movies I had seen, strange since I encountered unexpected things and new because both I and several of those I met compared themselves to the “old world”, i.e. Euroasia and parts of Africa.
A sense of uniqueness, admiration for an assumed freshness and difference, can be discerned in the writing of ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - September 12, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Jan Lundius Tags: Crime & Justice Development & Aid Economy & Trade Featured Global Headlines Health Human Rights Migration & Refugees TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news
Dental tourism — bargain dentistry and a vacation to boot
More people are taking a trip to beautiful Costa Rica to cut the bill for their teeth, and perhaps get a tan. (Source: Washington Post: To Your Health)
Source: Washington Post: To Your Health - September 1, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Mike Salmon Source Type: news
Has a space age spa in Churchill's wine cellar really found the secret to longer life?
FIONA GOLFAR: Last week I was cycling through the Costa Rican jungle. I could have gone to Venice, LA or New York, but the lush, green jungle appealed more. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - August 25, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Revolutionary method could bring us much closer to the description of hyperdiverse faunas
(Pensoft Publishers) Largely relying on DNA barcoding, rather than traditional practices, a simplified diagnostics method for species description could be the key to revealing Earth's biodiversity before much of it goes extinct. Proposed by a US-Canadian research team in a new publication in the open-access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, the approach is demonstrated in practice with the description of 18 new to science species of parasitic wasps, recently discovered from the Á rea de Conservaci ó n Guanacaste, Costa Rica. (Source: EurekAlert! - Biology)
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - July 25, 2019 Category: Biology Source Type: news
Tainted alcohol suspected of killing at least 19 in Costa Rica
The government has confiscated about 30,000 bottles of alcohol suspected to be poisoned with methanol (Source: Health News: CBSNews.com)
Source: Health News: CBSNews.com - July 23, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
19 Deaths in Costa Rica Tied to Tainted Alcohol, Officials Say
Health officials confiscated 30,000 bottles of alcohol and suspect the deaths were caused by methanol poisoning. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - July 22, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Heather Murphy Tags: Alcoholic Beverages Costa Rica Poisoning and Poisons Deaths (Fatalities) Counterfeit Merchandise Source Type: news
