Governments from 167 countries have signified that protecting biodiversity across all agricultural sectors is vital to attain sustainable development including food security and addressing climate change. This transpired during the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP13) which was held in Cancun, Mexico in December 2016.

Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic animals and plants, is the fastest-growing food-production sector in the world. Today, this source provides half of all fish for human consumption (FAO 2016).Yet with the rapid expansion of aquaculture over the last decade, environmental concerns have been accumulating – the burning of fossil fuels, loss of land, immense use of freshwater and depletion of wild fish resources.

In 1997, 6 years after the World Wide Web became accessible to the public, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences launched its website, heralding our entry into the Internet age and the expeditious dissemination of our scientific content worldwide (see Infographic). Toward the end of the last millennium, we redesigned the website to improve user experience and rebranded the journal as PNAS.

A recent study reveals that chickpea variety (JG-130) grown with balanced fertilizers including micronutrients and bio-fertilizers under rainfed condition recorded 15% and 40% higher grain yield compared to JG-130 and local chickpea variety grown without micronutrients respectively. For groundnut the application of micronutrients increased groundnut pods per plant by 9%, seeds per pod by 6% and pod yield by13%.

“Phenotyping” is the application of new technology — including satellite images, airborne cameras, and multi-spectral sensors mounted on robotic carts — to the age-old art of measuring the traits and performance of breeding lines of maize, wheat and other crops, Schurr said.“Farmers domesticated major food crops over millennia by selecting and using seed of individual plants that possessed desirable traits, like larger and better quality grain,” he explained

In the November 2016 issue of Estey Journal of International Law and Trade Policy, three articles written by Stuart J. Smyth of the University of Saskatchewan and colleagues discuss the issue of socio-economic considerations in biotech regulation.

As you crisscross the Ugandan countryside, the distinctive leaves of the cassava plant catch your eye everywhere you look. Cassava roots can be seen piled high along the roadside ready for sale. Sold in heaps of three to five, the freshly harvested roots are usually found still covered in soil fresh from harvesting.

Let’s assume you want to conserve a large, widely-forested watershed by compensating people for not cutting down trees. Would it be more effective to choose the most threatened, erosion-prone areas first? Would it be best to offer higher payments for the most strategic spots? Or should you offer the same payment per hectare to everyone, to avoid jealousy and keep transaction costs down?

There are many compelling reasons to clean up the global environment. One of the most pressing is that a polluted environment is deadly: every year, 1 in 4 people die from diseases associated with air, water or soil pollution. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and WHO are creating a global mechanism to bring together the environment and health sectors.

During high school, Stephen M. Beverley attended a Science Day event at the California Institute of Technology. As he explored research laboratories, he felt that the entire world of science was open to him. “It just seemed like a candy shop,” he says. Beverley’s inquisitive pursuit of scientific truth has led him to study the factors that make the parasite Leishmania a devastating human scourge.