Chain Reactions

The H5N1 bird flu first jumped to humans in 1997 in Hong Kong, killing six of the 18 patients infected. But that was not the end of H5N1. In 2003 it resurfaced in humans and over the next few years was detected in wild birds in many regions around the world. For...

Leapin’ Lizards

A 40-year study, begun on the Izu Islands in the early 1980s, has shed light on how lizards preyed upon by snakes are active at higher body temperatures than lizards living on islands with no snakes. The study also found significant climatic warming through the 40...

Reasons to Feel Less Helpless

Corals and mangroves are like canaries in the climate change coalmine. Research has shown that these ecosystems are already experiencing harm that may get much worse. But recent work by scholars in HKU’s Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) and their...

Airborne Solution

Governments need an incentive to take the hard decisions necessary to address climate change, but many, particularly in the developing world, tend to put off taking decisive action because the costs of climate mitigation may exceed the payoffs and take decades to be...

Power Plays

For all the publicity and enthusiasm generated around renewable energies such as solar, wind and biomass, their actual adoption has not been so remarkable. Although their usage in electricity generation has increased from 0.6 per cent of the global total in 1973 to...