By: Tim Radford, 12/23/2013

Photo Credit: Louis Vest/flickr

LONDON – It was only a single, withered conifer needle, but it told a dramatic story of climate change. Glaciologists found it in a set of ice cores drilled through a glacier on top of Mount Ortles, in the Italian Alps. It lay about 80 meters (262 feet) below the glacial surface, encased in solid ice, and carbon dating confirmed that it had blown from the branches of Larix decidua, the European larch, 2,600 years earlier. It was found about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from a far more dramatic exposure: the body of Ötzi the Iceman, a mummified Bronze Age corpse revealed by a melting glacier in 1991. Both finds deliver the same uncompromising message: for at least 5,000 years – because Ötzi perished around that time – the Italian Alps had continued to stay frozen throughout the year. And now they are melting.

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By: Associated Press, 12/23/2013

TORONTO -- A storm system is bringing freezing rain across much of Eastern Canada, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and wreaking havoc on holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year. "Winter Storm Gemini carried with it an exceptional amount of warmth and moisture by December standards, and where this air mass slid over a shallow cold layer near the ground, a major ice storm broke out over a long swath from Oklahoma to Ontario to New England," said weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. Utility companies said power outages hit more than 400,000 customers in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick as crews struggled to restore service. Roads and sidewalks turned into skating rinks. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is calling it one of the worst storms in the city's history.

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AlterNet, By: Paul Armentano, 12/20/2013

Despite the US government's nearly century-long prohibition of the plant, cannabis is nonetheless one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances in history. To date, there are over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature referencing the cannabis plant and its cannabinoids, nearly half of which were published within the last five years according to a keyword search on PubMed Central, the US government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research. Over 1,450 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2013 alone.

For more information visit www.alternet.org

Huffingtonpost.com, By: Charlotte Meredith, 12/15/2013

The debate over the legalisation of cannabis has been moving increasingly from the margins into the political mainstream, with multiple cities, states and countries considering, developing or implementing a range of regulated market models. Many public figures, including some politicians, are in agreement that fifty years later, the war on drugs has failed – so has the time come for Britain to take the step from prohibition to legalised regulation? At a time when Britain is facing brutal austerity measure, The Institute For Social And Economic Research recently estimated that a regulated market could reduce the government deficit by up to £1.25bn, whilst producing roughly £400m in "net benefit" for the country.

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Natural Society, By: Elizabeth Renter, 12/21/2013

Several studies have been conducted focusing on marijuana’s potential to treat and ease symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis –  a disease that affects the central nervous system, often causing daily pain and difficulty moving, speaking, and swallowing. A new study adds even more insight into how MS patients can use marijuana, finding that cannabinoids within the vilified healing plant can help treat multiple sclerosis-like diseases by preventing inflammation in the brain and spinal cord.

For more on this story visit www.naturalsociety.com