Daily environment roundup - March 31, 2015

The vast majority of the world's remaining forests are fragmented. In other words, the forests that we see today are "...increasingly isolated from other forests by a sea of transformed lands, and they are found in ever-smaller sized patches." says a new study. This means that only the Amazon and the Congo are the two major forests left in the world, says Christian Science Monitor.

Another study says that "The amount of moisture transpired from leaves increases for some tree species but drops on average." because of climate change.

Global climate change disturbs seafloor ecosystems on continental margins and required millions of years for ecological recovery, says a paper published in PNAS.

Around 8 million metric tonnes of plastic go into the oceans every year.

Today, 99 percent of our transoceanic data traffic—including phone calls, text and e-mail messages, —travels across the oceans via undersea cables, says a new book by New York University assistant professor of media, culture and communication Nicole Starosielski.

Read an excellent article on floral signals sent by plants.

A study by scientists from 20 countries show that lake temperatures have increased at a much higher rate than air temperatures.

While India is focused on auctioning of coal blocks, "...Beijing is closing its last major coal power station next year in an attempt to tackle air pollution which is costing the economy more than 10% of its GDP."  A lead story in Indian Express says nobody acted on the worsening air pollution in New Delhi, India's capital city.

A paper published in the leading medical journal BMJ says that increased exposure to particulate matter in the air can increase anxiety levels and the chances of stroke in women.

Multi-drug resistance and carbapenems resistance

Scientists and doctors have been saying that overuse of antibiotics will lead to antibiotic resistance. Bacteria share genes through a process called Horizontal Gene Transfer. This process is different from the way human beings or other organisms get their genetic material from normal cell division of their parental genome.

Carbapenems are a class of antibiotics that were being used against several strains of bacteria, including gravely ill patients and those that show antibiotic resistance. But the emergence of multi-drug resistance has also affected Carbapenems.

The concern now is that the resistance against Carbapenems have been increasing worldwide. The medical world is worried about such resistance in Enterobacteriaceae and Klebsiella pneumoniae to Carbapenems, as anyone can get an infection from these two bacteria from crowded places such as hospitals.

A recent study advocates that hospitals must compulsorily screen for two genes, Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) and New Delhi metallo-β-Lacatamase-1 (NDM-1), in Enterobacteriaceae infections, as these genes can rapidly cross geographic boundaries. The study also recommends limiting the use of Carbapenems to treat these infections to counter the emergence of resistance to this antibiotic.

NDML-1 infections has created a ruckus in India in 2010 with the media hyping it as a superbug that is set to devour the country because of its poor sanitation.

How to restore deleted or backed up messages in WhatsApp

If you have accidentally deleted your WhatsApp conversations and want to view them again, you can restore the conversation from the backed up files.

The msgstore.db.crypt8 file in WhatsApp is the backup file that saves your chats and messages. WhatsApp manually saves the backup file in your phone. Use the msgstore.db.crypt8 to restore them.

You can view this file in the WhatsApp/Databases folder location on your phone. You can find it either on your phone SD card or in your device's internal memory.

For more information on restoring backed up files in WhatsApp, see How do I recover deleted messages?

Kerala Assembly turns into battleground, but Mani presents Budget

There was free for all today in Kerala as the opposition MLAs tried to prevent the finance minister K M Mani from presenting the budget. The CPM-led opposition clashed with the watch and ward personnel who prevented the opposition MLAs from reaching the treasury benches and prevent the finance minister from going ahead with the state budget for 2015-16.

The finance minister laid the budget on the table after receiving oral instructions from the Assembly Speaker whose dais was destroyed by the opposition MLAs. In the ensuing clashes, a few MLAs were injured and they were taken to hospital.

NDTV says that "...Outside the assembly, a massive contingent of LDF and BJP protesters raised slogans against Mr Mani and threw bottles of water at the police, who used batons, tear gas and water cannons to control the crowd. The police has deployed a 2,500-strong force outside the assembly, with multiple barricades."

The state capital Thiruvananthapuram then witnessed clashes between the protesters and the police. Buses and governmnet vehicles were burnt and the houses of MLAs were attacked allegedly by the returning protesters.