SciDev. Net.

A wetter future awaits South Asia, says a new study based on global climate change models that informed the fifth assessment report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The South Asia region will see a 20–30 per cent increase in mean annual runoff for the period 2046–2075 relative to the study baseline period of 1976–2005, says Hongxing Zheng, corresponding author of the study published this month (August) in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.

A non-governmental association of science said to be the world’s largest was officially inaugurated in Paris last week, with the new president pledging to engage least developed nations as a part of its agenda. The International Science Council will provide a “unified global voice of science”, said Daya Reddy, the council’s newly elected president and South African research chair in computational mechanics at the University of Cape Town.

A software tool developed by India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is helping balance the diets of 2.4 million heads of Indian cattle leading to increased milk output and reduced methane emissions, an international livestock conference heard.