From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 21/02):

Business & management:
• The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is encouraging investment in a low carbon economy, as being not just good for climate change but also good for business.

Education
• Visiting Canadian researchers say that teaching children about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child leads to children recognizing others rights (including their parent's), better classroom behaviour and less bullying.

Environment & sustainability:
• Our oceans are suffering – climate change is altering their temperature and acidity, while the impact of humans means only 4% of the oceans can still be considered pristine.
• UK government ministers are urging local councils to do more to prevent the loss of older trees and ensure that new trees are being planted, after a survey of 150 towns across England.
• Who hasn’t wondered what the world would be like, if humanity ever managed to kill itself off completely? (It’s a bit hard to avoid with all the apocalyptic movies and games out there today.) Alan Weisman has written a thought-provoking book “The world without us”, predicting what might really happen, based on current scientific knowledge.
• The town of Willits in California was so galvanised by viewing the documentary “The end of suburbia” that they have become a town with a sustainable, local economy-based mission, so that they can become less reliant on fossil fuels, and stimulate their local economy at the same time.
• Traditional methods of collecting rainwater are being encouraged in Thailand using the ancient tradition of water jars, while in China, similar water cellars are buried in the ground, using concrete instead soil or other raw materials.
• Maude Barlow, author of “Blue gold: the battle against corporate theft of the world's water” has now written “Blue covenant: the global water crisis and the coming battle for the right to water” – a book that is becoming increasingly relevant as the UN warns of conflicts that are already arising over shortages in water. (The Libraries selector has just placed an order on the catalogue, so holds can be placed.)
• Most NZers are taking some steps to protect the environment, but 63% would like to know more about what they could be doing.

Health & wellbeing:
• Just when you thought it was OK to use your cell phone (note LOGIS update ending 07/02), researchers say it’s not brain tumours you need to worry about. Cancer of the salivary gland may be more likely for heavy cell phone users.
• Once you’ve lost all that weight by dieting, you’re going to need to do 90 minutes of exercise a day to keep it off!
• Dementia is costing the UK £14bn a year, and the rising numbers of dementia sufferers due to the increasingly aging population is starting to concern the politicians.
• Sweden has long been famous for the social services it provides to its people. Parental leave for both fathers and mothers there, can mean up to 18 months can be spent at home with a baby.

Law & Government:
• Libraries has an extra Knowledge Basket database recently added to the Digital Library: - Hansard. The main difference between this version & that available at the Parliamentary site, is that this database provides online access to the full text back to 1987.
• The Eco-Patent Commons has been launched by IBM, Nokia, Pitney-Bowes & Sony, in conjunction with the World Business Council on Sustainable Development. The companies have agreed to relinquish control over inventions that could benefit the planet.
• A University of Otago study shows that NZ government agencies are more responsive to email enquiries, than Australian government agencies.

People, culture & diversity:
• A British defence and security think tank has suggested that extremism is more difficult to fight in the UK, because of “the majority which in misplaced deference to 'multiculturalism' failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities”.
• A recent Human Rights Commission research poll shows that the climate for race relations in NZ has improved.

Science, technology & transport:
• Wireless communication between traffic lights and cars, or from car to car, could reduce waiting times in rush hour and help to reduce carbon emission from wasted idling or pointless acceleration.
• 3 major US science agencies are to research and develop the capacity to test the toxicity of chemicals on cultured human cells, in an attempt to reduce the amount of animal testing, using a robotic process.
• Having a multimedia computer in your pocket may not be that far away – convergence is the word for mobile phone manufacturers, who expect sales to top those of laptops within the next year or so.
• Schemes have been introduced in the UK to help people switch over from analogue to digital TV reception, as the final switch off of analogue starts in Nov this year and continues through until 2012.
• One of the world’s first commercial-scale tidal stream projects to generate 10.5 megawatts (MW) of clean, green power is to be built off the coast of Anglesey, north Wales.