Studies of the local climate of the mid-Holocene in Elk Lake, in North-Central Minnesota show that 7800-6700 yr BP the climate was colder and much drier than today and already between 6700 to 4000 yr BP the mean air temperatures approached the current mean. Those data indicate also that modern "global change" is nothing more than a short episode of warming which has repeatedly occured in the past.

Aflatoxins are highly toxic and carcinogenic mycotoxins found in many foods and feeds. The constant battle of primary producers against these poisons is intentionally left unmentioned by so-called "green" organisations. Besides the many fungicides which are directly aimed at controlling these diseases, several insecticides have an inhibiting effect on production of aflatoxins as well.

Data collected during studies on Lake Ontario indicate that almost all reported measurements for total Cd exceed the recommended limit by at least 5 times. Values for Cu also showed a high percentage of measurements from all regions of the lake greater than the recommended water quality objective. Other metals equalled or exceeded these limits. The concentrations of PCB, dieldrin and other pollutants in Lake Ontario water and fish exceeded the upper limits as well.

The board of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) formally approved controversial reforms (see Nature 453, 573; 2008) on 27 November that would split the agency into nine semi-autonomous institutes, with a recommendation for a tenth in computing. The meeting required police protection from protesting researchers. A draft of government proposals for a reform of French life sciences was also revealed last week by the newspaper Libération (see http://tinyurl.com/6ov4e8). It proposes the creation within two years of an overarching research council — the National Institute of Life Sciences — which would coordinate policy at the national biomedical agency INSERM, and health-related life sciences within the CNRS and other research agencies. The report also suggests regrouping all life sciences within a single research agency, along the lines of a recent recommendation made by an invited foreign panel led by Elias Zerhouni, former head of the US National Institutes of Health.