More than a thousand species of palm tree are at risk of extinction, according to a study.

Scientists used artificial intelligence to assess risks to the entire palm family, from tall trees to climbing plants.

The data gives a much better idea of how many, and which, palm species are under threat.

Palms are a huge plant family that provide millions of people with food, drink and shelter.

“We need to do all we can to protect biodiversity and that encompasses more than a thousand palm species that we now know may be threatened,” said study leader, Dr Sidonie Bellot of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.

She said action was needed to conserve plants on the ground and to collect more data on them, which cannot be done without the people who live in the regions where palms grow and who use the palms daily.

Palm trees have a host of uses, including as staple crops such as coconut, palm oil or dates, or in the making of furniture, rubber, oil and ropes.

Scientists are concerned about extinction risks to lesser-known wild relatives of popular ornamental or commercially grown palms.

They say wild plants are invaluable to local people, but could vanish even before their full potential is known.

Official assessments of extinction risk are time-consuming and costly, prompting the Kew-led team to investigate machine learning as a tool.

Their data suggests more than a thousand species – just over 50% of palms – are threatened with extinction.

“With these predictions we can help to prioritise conservation activity and to target species with further conservation work in the countries where they are most at risk,” said Dr Steven Bachman, research leader in Kew’s conservation assessment and analysis team.

The team has designated Madagascar, New Guinea, the Philippines, Hawaii, Borneo, Jamaica, Vietnam, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Sulawesi as priority regions for palm conservation.

Kofar Gamji park was built in 1914 to serve as a recreational center. It is now known as Splash park, Kaduna. It is notable as a fun and relaxation spot away from the stress of work or school.

It was built by Colonial masters in 1914.

Kofar Gamji park with its serenity and beautiful scenery is the perfect getaway spot for picnics, parties or meditation.

Residents of Kaduna metropolis and environs flock to Kofar Gamji Amusement Park on Saturdays and Sundays to relax and unwind with their families after a long week of work and school.

The crowd which is mostly made of young men and women, families and singles all of whom throng to Kofar Gamji for various reasons, fuse at the arena.

Kofar Gamji also known as Hassan Usman Katsina Park, is the first amusement park built in the heart of the Kaduna metropolis along the Shooting Range New Extension next to the Kaduna Police College and is indeed the most visited place during celebrations such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Sallah and New Year.

The premises which started off as a garden during colonial rule and northern administrations, occupies a landmass of about 7, 000 square metres and has beautiful greenery with several trees, a small mangrove, orchards and small islands with majestic water flowing from the River Kaduna.

The park is divided into two by the river with a foot bridge built by Lord Frederick Lugard connecting them together.

Until the bridge was constructed there was no way of linking both halves except by canoe.

Kofar Gamji park has a wide lawn for relaxation, a mini zoo housing animals including a lion, two hyena’s, four monkeys, two ostriches, a tortoise, peacocks, a children’s playground that is managed by a private company and a terrace for couples who chose to stroll hand-in-hand, also known as the Lord Lugard foot bridge.

The scenic view of the Kaduna River, which cuts across the park, is a pleasure to behold even though, the river often over flows its banks during the raining season – forcing the management of the park to close it until the water level recedes.

The Rock Islands are a small limestone collection or probably coral up-rises that violently surfaced from the sea to form islands in the Southern Lagoon, located in the island nation of Palau.

There are up to 300 islands in the group, which differs from source to source, where the tallest is 207 meters (679 feet) above sea level.

The islands are very distinctive and easily recognizable, covered in foliage with a bright sandy beaches, and turquoise sea color.

There are no permanent inhabitants on the island, but they are very popular tourist destination.

In the past the Palauans made settlements on them, but nowadays they mostly use them for cultural and recreational purposes.

The archaeological findings have given evidence that the inhabitants were on the small islands since 3,100 BC, and stayed there for about 2,500 years.

The largest islands in the group are called Ngeruktabel, Ulong and Eil Malk (or Mecherchar), where the most popular place is on the Eil Malk Island.

The Jellyfish Lake is located on it, which is one of the many Marine lakes in the Rock Islands that provides home and safety for several kinds of stingless jellyfish found only in Palau.

But not just that, the people visiting the islands are amazed by the diving in the waters around them, since it is one of the best and most diverse dive site in the world.

However, there is some problem with the islands that do not affect them much at the moment, but might cause a problem.

The erosion has made the islands to get a mushroom-like shape with a smaller base at the inter-tidal notch than what lies above it.

Nonetheless, the dense community of sponges, bivalves, chitons, snails, urchins and some algae are another benefactor to this issue. Still, they are protected UNESCO Heritage Site since 2012, and will continue to be one of the most alluring places on the planet.

Chilean scientists recently uncovered several remains of elephant predecessors dating back 12,000 years near Lake Tagua Tagua, a glacial finger lake in southern Chile.

Gom-pho-theres, an extinct relative of the modern elephant, roamed southern Chile thousands of years ago and might have been the target of group hunts by inhabitants of the region, Chilean scientists hypothesized after a recent discovery.

The large creatures weighed up to four tonnes and could reach three metres (9.8 feet), leading scientists to believe that they were the target of group hunts from inhabitants in the region.

Scientists say the discovery will also allow them to study the wider human impact on the region and how a changing climate affected animals in the area during that time.

Rain lashed satellite cities around the Indian capital, late september, 2022, turning roads into swimming pools and causing havoc for vehicles and pedestrians.

Authorities in Guru-gram, where many companies have offices and executives have their homes, ordered schools to close and urged residents to work from home due to the widespread flooding.

Flooding is an annual problem during the monsoon season in South Asia, but the impact is worsened by crumbling civic infrastructure, clogged drains and uncontrolled urban expansion.

Officials said 39 people in the state have died from lightning in the last five days, prompting the state government to issue new guidelines for how people can protect themselves during a thunderstorm.

A 1-degree-Celsius (1.8-degree-Fahrenheit) rise in temperature increases lightning by 12 times.

Thunderbolts contain as much as a billion volts of electricity and can cause immense damage to buildings when they hit.

There has been a 34-percent rise in lightning strikes across India over the past year, which has caused deaths to increase.

As military and civilian drones become increasingly popular, there are growing concerns about the threats some of them may pose over places like airports, prisons and electrical grids.

Drones have already attracted millions of new aviators through aerial photography, drone racing and other recreational activities, while countless commercial remote pilots are finding new applications for these aircraft on a regular basis.

However, with this new technology in aviation comes the need to protect critical infrastructure from its misuse.

A company has developed counter-drone technology that can identify and mitigate threats from malicious drones.

Airports, prisons and electricity grids are turning to this technology to counter drones coming into their space.

Israeli company, Eviation Aircraft successfully launched world’s first all-electric passenger aircraft, the Alice from Washington’s Grant County International Airport.

The zero-emission plane traveled at an altitude of 3,500 feet for its eight-minute inaugural flight.

With battery technology similar to that of an electric car or a cell phone and 30 minutes of charging, the nine-passenger Alice will be able to fly for one hour, and about 440 nautical miles.

The plane has a max cruise speed of 250 knots, or 287 miles per hour. For reference, a Boeing 737 has a max cruise speed of 588 miles per hour.

Eviation was founded in 2015 and has been pushing the Alice forward ever since.

The company hopes to use the information gathered during Tuesday’s flight to review next steps and deliver aircrafts to customers by 2027 — though Eviation warns that plan is subject to change.

The company says it expects to be working on developing an FAA-certified aircraft through 2025, followed by a year or two of flight testing before it can deliver Alices to customers.

Federation of Nigerian Mining Host Communities have called for the establishment of Solid Minerals Community Development Fund for mining host communities.

The Federation made the call at a news conference at the end of its two-day National Convention in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital with the theme: “Strengthening Social Safeguards, Environmental and Socio-economic Sustainability of Mining Host Communities in Nigeria”.

Member, National Steering Committee, Wushishi Habibu said the call became imperative to enable communities to benefit more from mining activities in their area .

Wushishi said Global Rights in 2019 catalysed the formation of the  Federation, an amalgamation of mining host communities in Nigeria with the aim of articulating common struggles and demands.

Nigerians have been urged to be conscious of issues surrounding sanitation, as significant percentages of preventable communicable diseases are traced to poor environmental sanitation.

Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, stated this at the Community Sensitisation/Cleaning Campaign Exercise in Commemoration of 2022 National Environmental Sanitation Day held in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

He said the aim of the National Environmental Sanitation was to awaken citizens’ consciousness on the issues surrounding sanitation and the need for everybody to keep his or her surroundings very clean at all times.