This week’s roundup of good news stories features a decrease in logging in key rainforest regions and the launch of a ground-breaking dementia study. Sustainable shopping is also on the rise.
Deforestation has decreased in Brazil and Colombia in the past year, according to a new study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in partnership with the University of Maryland. The data showed that deforestation fell by 39% in the Brazilian Amazon when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office. In Colombia, logging decreased by almost half under Premier Gustavo Petro. However, the WRI warned that losses in other areas led to a total of 37,000 square kilometres of tree loss in 2023, equivalent to ten football pitches per minute.
In the UK, thousands of volunteers in 50 National Health Service (NHS) memory clinics are set to trial blood tests for dementia as part of a five-year study involving the University of Oxford and University College London. The tests will search for proteins and biomarkers signalling the early signs of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Experts hope that the study will lead to earlier diagnoses and new treatments. Meanwhile in the US, scientists have developed an app that can detect early signs of frontotemporal dementia in people predisposed to the condition.
An anonymous donor has gifted the Early Cancer Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK, £11m for its work on identifying precancerous cells years before they develop into tumours. The Institute is particularly focusing on hard-to-treat cancers, including those affecting the lungs, oesophagus and liver, and acute myeloid leukaemia. Using samples stored as part of ovarian cancer screening services, the Centre has already discovered changes in blood cells that provide an early warning for leukaemia.
The UK’s mapping agency Ordnance Survey (OS) has launched a biodiversity data initiative that will enable environmental projects to monitor changes in wildlife corridors and protected habitats. Its new Field Boundary layer, covering rural and moorland areas in Great Britain, will allow the agency to identify features like stonewalls and hedgerows. The initiative will support carbon accounting, land management, and policy-making, and help national parks monitor and protect valuable landscape features
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