Obstacles to Braskem sale
Brazil’s Petrobras is in the process of selling its stake in resins producer Braskem to LyondellBasell. However, discussions between Braskem’s owners – Petrobras and Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht – and the Dutch-headquartered group are said to have cooled following some setbacks at Braskem.
Partnership on plastic
The world’s environment ministers have amended the Basel Convention on hazardous waste to include plastic in a legally binding framework they hope will better regulate global trade in plastic waste.
Reproducibility
Science has been described as the systematic and logical process applied to the discovery of how things work and affect us all.
School closures after illegal dumping
On 6 March, 2019, a tanker lorry dumped 20-40t of chemical waste illegally into Sungai Kim Kim river that winds through the heavily industrialised town of Pasir Gudang in Johor, Malaysia’s southernmost state.
Uranium sponge
Researchers in the US have developed a new material to suck up uranium from seawater.
Singapore invests in agriculture
Land-scarce Singapore has only ca 720km2 of total land area. Over 90% of its food requirements are currently imported. On 1 April, 2019, however, the city-state launched a new agency dedicated to food safety and security, with an ambitious goal to produce 30% of Singaporeans’ nutritional needs domestically by 2030.
Yellow rust threat
A virulent strain of fungus that causes yellow rust in wheat is sweeping across the Indian fields of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The main bread wheat cultivar, HD267, which currently occupies 10 to 12m ha appears to be susceptible to this new strain.
Quenching inflammation
Treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases may be one step closer, thanks to two independent teams of researchers. Their findings give new insight into how to stop inflammation at the molecular level
Glucosamine and heart health
Using glucosamine supplements regularly may be linked to a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). Researchers led by Lu Qi at Tulane University in New Orleans, US, drew on data from the UK Biobank, a large population-based study of more than half a million British people (BMJ, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l1628).