Food diversity under siege from global warming, UN says

	Pizza Prescription: Kids Should Eat Less, Researchers Say Children consume an average of 136 calories per day from pizza, the new study found. For the new study, Powel and her colleagues looked at questionnaires about the diets of children and teens ages 2 to 19, that were completed every two years between 2003 and 2010. The researchers found that the number of calories children consumed from pizza decreased 25 percent between 2003 and 2010, which is good news, they said. On such days, teens consume an average of 230 extra calories, and younger children consume an average of 84 extra calories, compared with the days on which kids don't eat pizza. Read More » Earth Can Contaminate Alien Meteorites Quickly, Study Shows A team of scientists has published the results of an investigative survey into the Sutter's Mill meteorite that landed in California in 2012. The results reveal that the meteorite contained a number of features associated with minerals such as olivines, phyllosilicates, carbonates, and possibly pyroxenes, as well as organics. However, a key conclusion of the paper, and one that is likely to be of keen interest to astrobiologists, is confirmation that meteorites can become contaminated by Earth-based organics very quickly. Several fragments of the meteorite were recovered, four of them shortly after the fall, and others several days later after a heavy rainstorm.  The research team used infrared spectroscopy, employing several different analytical devices to obtain spectra from very small samples. Read More » Food diversity under siege from global warming, U.N. says By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Climate change threatens the genetic diversity of the world's food supply, and saving crops and animals at risk will be crucial for preserving yields and adapting to wild weather patterns, a U.N. policy paper said on Monday. Certain wild crops - varieties not often cultivated by today's farmers - could prove more resilient to a warming planet than some popular crop breeds, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. Ensuring food security and protecting at-risk species in the face of climate change is one of "the most daunting challenges facing humankind", the paper said. Between 16 and 22 percent of wild crop species may be in danger of extinction within the next 50 years, said the FAO paper. Read More » Food diversity under siege from global warming, UN says By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Climate change threatens the genetic diversity of the world's food supply, and saving crops and animals at risk will be crucial for preserving yields and adapting to wild weather patterns, a U.N. policy paper said on Monday. Certain wild crops - varieties not often cultivated by today's farmers - could prove more resilient to a warming planet than some popular crop breeds, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. Ensuring food security and protecting at-risk species in the face of climate change is one of "the most daunting challenges facing humankind", the paper said. Between 16 and 22 percent of wild crop species may be in danger of extinction within the next 50 years, said the FAO paper. Read More »