Javan rhinos, California porpoises, drugs, and wild birds
Two-thirds of Central America's most crucial forest bird habitats are at risk of destruction due to drug-fueled deforestation. Drug traffickers are moving into the wildest parts of the forest to avoid drug enforcement crackdowns and create runways, shipping lanes, and cattle pastures to launder money and control territory. Cocaine smuggling alone accounts for 15% to 30% of annual deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. Since 1970, Central America's resident and migratory bird populations have halved, with deforestation a key factor.
Indonesian authorities have arrested suspects in an international poaching ring targeting Javan rhinos, a critically endangered species. The ring used homemade firearms and has killed at least 26 rhinos since 2018. The poachers targeted the animals' horns, which are in demand in Asia. They are mainly used there in traditional Chinese medicine and for making ornaments. The Javan rhino population numbers around 80 adults, and they are threatened by the destruction of tropical forest habitats and by poachers.
The number of critically endangered California porpoises in the Mexican waters of the Gulf of California has fallen to between six and eight this year. It is possible that some of the remaining ones – the world's smallest porpoises and the most endangered marine mammal – may have moved to another location in the bay. This species occurs nowhere else and cannot be caught, kept, or bred in captivity.
The economies of Malaysia and Myanmar and the microcredit system in Bangladesh
In Malaysia, the price of diesel rose by more than 50% in a single day as part of a change to a decades-old fuel subsidy. The government aims to cut social spending and save billions of ringgit annually. The restructuring eliminates energy subsidies for all but the most vulnerable.
In Myanmar (formerly Burma), civil war is increasingly disrupting trade and livelihoods. World Bank economists estimate that the country’s economy has grown by 1% annually and expect similar growth in the current fiscal year. According to their report, almost a third of the country’s population lives in poverty, and the economy has shrunk by about 10% compared with before the pandemic. Imports and exports have fallen sharply, goods are in short supply, and about a third of the factories surveyed by the World Bank have reported power outages.
Despite years of government oppression in Bangladesh, Nobel Peace Prize winner and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus is fighting poverty. He offers financial services to people excluded from formal banking systems so they can take out small loans to invest in their businesses. The pilot program was launched in 1976 for rural Bangladeshi women. However, its success has been questioned, and microfinance has been the subject of several scandals involving lenders charging exorbitant interest rates.
Reports on world wars and conflicts in 2023
Based on a study by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, although the number of deaths on the battlefield decreased last year compared to the previous two years, the overall number of conflict-related deaths, including civilian casualties, reached a 30-year high. The decrease in battlefield deaths is linked to the ceasefire in the Tigray conflict. In total, there were 122,000 conflict-related deaths recorded in 2023, with over 71,000 fatalities in Ukraine and around 23,000 in Gaza. There were a total of 59 different conflict zones in 34 countries.
Africa has the highest number of inter- and intra-state conflicts, with 28 separate conflict zones. The number of conflicts on the continent has nearly doubled over the past decade, resulting in over 330,000 battlefield deaths as of 2021.
Violence against children caught up in conflicts from Israel and the Palestinian territories to Sudan, Myanmar, and Ukraine reached "extreme levels" in 2023, with unprecedented killings and injuries, according to a UN report. Overall, there was a "shocking 21% increase in serious violations" against children and young people under 18, including in Congo, Burkina Faso, Somalia, and Syria. In Sudan alone, grave violations against children rose by 480%.
The world's forcibly displaced: record growth and new migration pathways
The year 2023 marked a significant increase in the number of people forced to leave their homes due to conflict, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A total of 8.8 million individuals were displaced as a result of violence, bringing the overall number of forcibly displaced people to over 117 million. This accounts for 1.5% of the global population and represents almost double the number from a decade ago. Approximately 40% of these displaced individuals are minors. The UNHCR's data encompasses refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, and others needing international protection.
The UN agency reports that one-third of forcibly displaced individuals are currently residing in the world's poorest countries, such as Chad and Sudan. In Sudan, over 7 million people have fled their homes since the outbreak of war in April 2023, and almost 3 million were displaced by previous conflicts. The United States received 1.2 million asylum applications, while Germany received 329,000, making them the largest recipients of new asylum applications last year.
A new migrant route has emerged, leading desperate individuals to Europe. This route passes through Mauritania and involves a perilous journey. The local port in Nouadhibou, once a bustling trade centre for fishing boats, has become a hub for human smuggling. From Mauritania, citizens from Mauritania, Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Senegal embark on dangerous boat journeys to the Canary Islands. In the first three months of this year alone, over 12,000 migrants arrived at this Spanish archipelago, often packed onto small, severely overcrowded boats.
Gender and pain sensation, sleep as a future predictor
While asleep, the brain not only replays past events but also attempts to predict the future experiences of the sleeper. After studying the behaviour of rats, scientists from Rice University in Houston concluded that sleeping rodents not only dreamed about the places in the maze they visited but also developed potential new routes to complete it. This research could potentially help in treating neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers from the University of Arizona Health Sciences have identified the first functional sex differences between women and men in nociceptors. Nociceptors are specialized nerve cells that produce pain. The experiments revealed that the hormone prolactin sensitizes only female cells, while the neurotransmitter orexin B sensitizes only male cells. These findings underscore the importance of a precision medicine approach, taking into account the patient's gender when choosing a pain treatment and thereby reassuring the medical community about the progress in personalized healthcare.
Experts from University College London have identified brain areas that influence the response to pleasure in bipolar disorder. Some mood distortion in the patients was linked to increased activation in their striatum. This brain region responds to pleasant experiences and decreased communication between the striatum and the insula. This research may help explain why people with bipolar disorder can get stuck in a "vicious cycle" in which their moods get heightened, sometimes causing them to take more risks than usual.
Makeup, cancer and titanium dioxide in food
British women are suing leading US cosmetics companies for causing mesothelioma due to the use of asbestos-based talc in their makeup. Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer that affects the lining of the lungs, heart, or stomach. Talc, a common ingredient in cosmetics, is mined from underground clay deposits and can often contain veins of asbestos.
In Taranto, Italy, where many have died from cancer and pollution, children play on the polluted land near a steel mill. Italian-born Australian photographer Lisa Sorgini documents their and their parents’ lives in a project created in collaboration with residents. This includes a series of portraits of children and mothers fighting daily to protect their children's health.
Concerns have been raised by scientists about the widespread use of titanium dioxide (TiO2) in American food. This ingredient is found in sunscreen and is used as a colourant in frozen pizza, bakery products, cheeses, salad dressings, and children's sweets. Due to its non-flammable and insoluble properties, titanium dioxide is a synthetically produced substance in cosmetics paints, plastics, paper, and wallpaper. It is banned in the European Union.
Frost on Mars' equator and space vs Earth's ice age
The work of the European Space Agency probes has allowed researchers to observe morning frost on volcanoes near Mars's equator for the first time. This discovery disproves the belief that water frost could not exist in this area. The ice is not only limited to the Martian poles but is also more abundant on the planet than previously thought. The frost is found on the peaks of volcanoes on the Tharsis volcanic plateau, the highest on Mars and the entire solar system.
According to astrophysicists from prestigious institutions such as Boston University, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University, our solar system had a close encounter with an interstellar cloud about two million years ago. This massive and dense cloud had a significant impact on our planet. The Earth was exposed to radiation that dramatically altered its climate, leading to the development of ice ages. The interstellar cloud might have shrunk the heliosphere to such an extent that the Earth remained outside it for more than 10 thousand years, exposed to cosmic radiation and particles that cooled the climate.
A new study suggests that unexplained, powerful radio bursts from deep space may be reaching Earth from galaxies similar to ours. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) could be much more common than previously thought. FRBs are intense and short bursts of radio waves that release as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun does in three days. They were discovered in 2007, and more than 1,000 FRBs have been detected coming from different parts of the universe since then.