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Science2026-07-25 · 12건

Nutrients in our food are declining. Can regenerative agriculture save it?

Approach focuses on rebuilding soil health, increasing biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems For the last few decades, the nutrient content of our crops has been declining. In the late 90s, the US Department of Agriculture found the vitamin C content of lemons had decreased by almost a third over the previous 22 years. Calcium in carrots, an important source especially for non-meat eaters, had reduced, on average, by more than a quarter. Vitamin A in bananas was down by 57%. The mineral content of wheat has declined by between 20-30% since the 1960s. A number of reasons have been suggested for this worrying decline, ranging from new varieties of crop that are bred to grow quicker and bigger to the higher carbon dioxide levels in the air causing plants to produce more sugars and starches (they grow faster but they produce fewer nutrients). A wide range of fixes have been suggested, from GM crops to synthetic soil amendments, or underground farms. Continue reading...

The Guardian·

What can the Galápagos Islands’ animals teach us about the threats of El Niño?

In this week’s newsletter: the archipelago at the centre of the extreme weather phenomenon could help scientists predict how other marine ecosystems will adapt to our warming climate • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here The ocean waters around the Galápagos Islands are hot. Very hot. Observed for centuries in the Pacific by fishers, the El Niño weather phenomenon begins when the prevailing trade winds slow, allowing warm water to spread east along the coast of South America. Right now, the pattern is in full flow and will build from this year into next, likely bringing record temperatures to an already overheating world. If 2026 is not the hottest year on record, 2027 surely will be – and the Galápagos archipelago is in the centre of this climate crisis. ‘It’s only going to get worse’: wildfires forcing firefighters to make impossible choices Millions face long-term coastal flooding risk in UK without climate action, scientists warn Slowdown in Arctic ice melt ends after largest winter decline on record Continue reading...

The Guardian·

Racy short story by Alan Turing offers glimpse of ‘playful, funny, cheeky’ side

Writing from year after gross indecency arrest challenges ‘isolated mathematician’ image, says Cambridge academic When people think of Alan Turing, they might imagine he was arrogant, isolated, humourless, tortured. A better way of remembering the father of modern computing would be, an academic argues, as “playful, funny, cheeky, literary, and someone who really liked sex”. The Cambridge University English literature professor Sarah Dillon has transcribed and studied a little-known short story that Turing wrote in the year after his arrest in Manchester for gross indecency. Continue reading...

The Guardian·