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They have long been thought of as the antidote to harmful greenhouse gases, sufferers of, rather than contributors to, the effects of global warming. But in a startling discovery, scientists have realised that plants are part of the problem.

According to a recent study, living plants may emit almost a third of the methane entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The result has come as a shock to climate scientists. “This is a genuinely remarkable result,” said Richard Betts of the climate change monitoring organisation the Hadley Centre. “It adds an important new piece of understanding of how plants interact with the climate."
The Guardian Weekly, 2006
a.

Miten ilmastontutkijoiden näkemys kasveista on muuttunut?



The future of humanity may soon rest deep in a frozen mountain on a remote Norwegian island. The Norwegian government plans to build a $3m “doomsday vault” to house 2m seeds, which represent the entire agricultural diversity of the planet. The idea is to safeguard the world’s food supply against threats such as nuclear war, asteroid impact, terror attack, climate change and rising sea levels. “It’s a Noah’s ark for seeds,” said Gary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, who carried out a feasibility study on the project. “It would be used to re-establish agriculture.” The vault, measuring 5m by 5m by 15m, will be cut from solid rock in the side of a mountain and should be finished by September 2007.
The Guardian Weekly, 2006
b.

Mitä Norjan hallitus on suunnitellut ja miksi?



Since Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk fell from grace last year over his now-discredited work on human cloning, he has been stripped of his position at Seoul National University and currently faces trial on charges of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the donors who sponsored his work. At last week’s hearing, Hwang explained that while some of the cash may have found its way into extracurricular projects, “all of the money was used for the purpose of research." Besides paying for one scientist’s wedding and another’s housing, that research agenda apparently included attempts to clone Ice-Age mammoths, using tissues of the extinct animal obtained from glaciers. Sadly, Hwang reported, his attempts to recreate Jurassic Park failed, as did an effort to clone tigers.
Time, 2006
e.

Miksi Hwang Woo—suk joutui oikeuteen, ja miten hän puolustautui?