The coffee industry rests upon the production of a global commodity that has grown two-fold in volume and 3.5 times in value since the 1960s, generating in the process billions of annual export dollars. This article discusses coffee's history as a global commodity, and its environmental and social implications. Occupying some 10 million hectares globally, millions of small producers and their f...

Introduction: Alien organisms, exotic pests, biological invaders, nonindigenous species: all are names for organisms that end up where they were not whose establishment adversely affects the surrounding environment. The process, dispersal, by which they are introduced has occurred long before man existed, but has in the modern era been exponentially accelerated. The impacts have ranged from cul...

One of the most threatening problems the world faces is the growing poverty crisis and the related human rights inequalities and the spread of diseases in underprivileged areas. Human rights and relief organizations try hard to contain the devastation of these interconnected difficulties. What is the role of the biomedical scientist in this endeavor? The challenges that biomedical scientists fa...