Climate is changing and, as a consequence, some areas that are climatically suitable for date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivation at the present time will become unsuitable in the future. In contrast, some areas that are unsuitable under the current climate will become suitable in the future. Consequently, countries that are dependent on date fruit export will experience economic decline,...

the main issues about relation between climate and relief in the romanian geomorphological literature follow three directions of research: the description of pleistocene glacial and pleistocene-holocene periglacial landforms in the carpathians; the direct analysis of climate?s role in landform development; the integration of separate works and findings in a synthetic morphodynamic system applic...

Processes that control the hydrological balance in eastern South Africa on orbital to millennial timescales remain poorly understood because proxy records documenting its variability at high resolution are scarce. In this work, we present a detailed 270,000 year-long record of terrestrial climate variability in the KwaZulu-Natal province based on elemental ratios of Fe/K from the southwest Indi...

We compared time trends of age-standardized incidence rate of liver cancer (ICD-10: C22) across 13 cancer registries and ethnic/racial groups in Asia. We obtained the cancer incidence data from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents, Vols IV–IX (years at diagnosis: 1973–77, 1978–82, 1983–87, 1993–97 and 1998–2002, respectively) and used the world population for age-standardization. Asia was di...

The Lut block in eastern Iran is a micro-continental block within the convergent orogen between the Arabian, Eurasian and Indian plates. Large areas of the north-central, eastern, and western Lut block are covered by volcanic rocks of Paleogene, Neogene and Quaternary age.  Peak volcanic activity took place in the north-central part of the Lut block during the Eocene, and then dramatically decr...

[1] A suite of idealised ensemble experiments are used to investigate the sensitivity of the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation to the location of SST anomalies over the tropical Pacific Ocean. Of particular interest is the response of South American rainfall during austral summer. The experiments reveal an approximately opposite response in rainfall over South America when the tropica...

Few comprehensive studies have investigated viraemia caused by human parvoviruses (HPAVs) in China. A total of 1626 of blood samples were collected from non-HBV and HBV infected Chinese subjects (adults, N = 1279; children, N = 347) from south-western and south-eastern China. DNA from three HPAVs was detected in blood samples using PCR-based assays. The epidemiological profiles and association ...

Sequence data from four gene regions (nrDNA, petN-psbM, trnD-trnT, trnS-trnG, 3,705 bp) revealed that junipers from the southern mountain ranges of Iran are very diverse. The combined NJ tree (3,705 bp) showed strong support for the distinct nature of J. excelsa, J. polycarpos, J. p. var. turcomanica, and J. p. var. seravschanica. The samples from NW Iran are J. polycarpos and samples from NE I...

BACKGROUND Early blight, caused by the fungus Alternaria solani, occurs on potato mainly in the south-eastern part of Sweden, but also in other parts of the country. The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of A. solani populations from different potato growing regions in south-eastern Sweden using AFLP marker analysis. In addition, the cultured isolates were examined for ...

Salinity is a key abiotic property of inland waters; it has a major influence on biotic communities and is affected by many natural and anthropogenic processes. Salinity of inland waters tends to increase with aridity, and biota of inland waters may have evolved greater salt tolerance in more arid regions. Here we compare the sensitivity of stream macroinvertebrate species to salinity from a re...