An extraordinary gathering at the United Nations on September 21 may have permanently changed how the world deals with antibiotic resistance, which is believed to kill 700,000 people around the world each year. During the UN meeting, the entire assembly signed on to a political declaration that calls antibiotic resistance “the greatest and most urgent global risk.” Continue reading
Tag Archives: National Geographic
DID YOU MISS IT? Who’s developing African cattle resistant to sleeping sickness—and why it matters—by Tamar Haspel
In case you missed it, earlier this year, Washington Post food–science columnist Tamar Haspel served up an interesting story in The Plate, a blog of National Geographic’s Future of Food series. Her story’s about a long-term research project’s attempt to develop disease-resistant cattle for African farmers. Continue reading
National Geographic weighs in on (several) inconvenient truths and (several different sides) of the ‘beef debate’
There’s a new feature article in National Geographic this month titled: Carnivore’s Dilemma. Written by Robert Kunzig and photographed by Brian Finke, the feature asks, and attempts to answer, the question: ‘Is America’s appetite for meat bad for the planet?’ Continue reading
Reframing the pastoral narrative: Ancient mobile herding strategies to make a comeback in a hotter world
Fulani boy in Niger herds his family’s animals (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Mobility to unlock scattered food, feed, water and other scarce and scattered essential resources is a human strategy as old as humankind itself—and one that remains key for pastoral livestock herders the world over. As the world warms and its natural resources become ever scarcer, it would … Continue reading