The fungus Piriformospora indica was first isolated from plants growing in arid, hot desert conditions and has been shown to have significant potential as a biocontrol and biofertilising organism in barley under optimal growth conditions. However, it was not thought to be effective in plants grown in low temperatures and has consequently not been well tested in cold-stressed crops. This study s...

conference came at a time of increasing political and scientific confidence in the role of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions in changing global temperatures. The most recent (2007) report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2) states that climate change is now " unequivocal " , based on increasing evidence from global average air and ocean temperatures, melting of snow and ic...

Following a global recession, public services in many countries are preparing themselves for the worst in terms of future public spending. In the UK (which seems worse hit than many), the potential cuts are substantial. After year-on-year funding increases to bring England closer to European levels of health care spending, the National Health Service now faces the very real prospect of active c...

0963-9969/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2010.02.001 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 1472 582400. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.J. Jame James). URL: http://www.frperc.com (C. James). Any noticeable increase in ambient temperature resulting from climatic change will have a substantial effect on the current and developing food cold-chain. A rise in...

occasion of some interesting discussions, ihe first article is a " Report on the Meteorology of Abyssinia," by Surgeon Henry Cook, M.D. Dr. Cook shows that the climate of the sandy belt of country which intervenes between the sea shore and the inland hilly plateau is very different from that of the plateau itself. Tlie former resembles the climate of Scinde, consisting of a hot (very hot) and a...

Using an extensive network of occurrence records for 293 plant species collected over the past 40 years across a climatically diverse geographic section of western North America, we find that plant species distributions were just as likely to shift upwards (i.e., towards higher elevations) as downward (i.e., towards lower elevations)-despite consistent warming across the study area. Although th...

BACKGROUND New marine invasions have been recorded in increasing numbers along the world's coasts due in part to the warming of the oceans and the ability of many invasive marine species to tolerate a broader thermal range than native species. Several marine invertebrate species have invaded the U.S. southern and mid-Atlantic coast from the Caribbean and this poleward range expansion has been t...

The now arid Great Basin of western North America hosted expansive late Quaternary pluvial lakes, yet the climate forcings that sustained large ice age hydrologic variations remain controversial. Here we present a 175,000 year oxygen isotope record from precisely-dated speleothems that documents a previously unrecognized and highly sensitive link between Great Basin climate and orbital forcing....

The energy performance of radiant slab cooling relative to conventional air systems to be clarified for climates from cold and dry to very hot and humid. EnergyPlus simulations were used to compare the energy performance of 1) radiant slab cooling combined with a dedicated outdoor air system and 2) a variable air volume system. Simulation results show that the radiant slab system provided 10% t...

Impacts of long-term climate shifts on the dynamics of intact communities within species ranges are not well understood. Here, we show that warming and drying of the Southwestern United States over the last 25 years has corresponded to a shift in the species composition of Sonoran Desert winter annuals, paradoxically favoring species that germinate and grow best in cold temperatures. Winter rai...