Eighty percent of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have been lost, the caiman’s recovery in Latin America, and the southern cone’s vineyards and climate change.

ARGENTINA

Researchers warn that Argentina and Chile’s water supply may be in peril after looking at how Patagonian icefields have changed in the past. “Worryingly, this study suggests the region may well be on a trajectory of irreversible change, which will have profound impacts on agriculture and the increasing dependency on hydroelectric power in Chile and Argentina,” said Chris Fogwill of the University of New South Wales in Australia.

A prototype wheelchair has been developed in Argentina that responds to the user’s brain signals.

BOLIVIA

The population of Amazon turtles has plummeted in Bolivia because they are hunted for human consumption. A re-population campaign is underway to introduce more than 20,000 specimens into the wild.

CARIBBEAN

Pollution, overfishing, ocean acidification and rising temperatures have had a compound effect on the Caribbean’s coral reefs, destroying 80% of them over the past fifty years.

Lionfish numbers are still exploding in the Caribbean. “In addition to further research, it seems that the only thing we can do to control lionfish at this point is to keep spearing them,” says Serena Hackerott of the University of North Carolina. More here.

CHILE

“Vineyards in higher latitudes, at higher altitudes or surrounded by ocean will benefit from climate change.” So say the authors of a new study on climate change and wine. They point to Argentina and Chile as places where vineyards will fare better than other zones like France.

COLOMBIA

Though caiman skins were once harvested daily by the thousands, Latin America’s largest predator is bouncing back.

Colombia is launching ‘Climatexplorer,’ a van that will travel the country documenting people and places adapting to climate change.

Colombian scientists have found bean strains that are naturally tolerant to drought. The study can be found here.

A Colombian scientist has been recognized for her work cloning wild cats.

MEXICO

Mexican astronomers at UNAM have put forward a new theory that picks up where Einstein and Newton left off. The Mexicans’ ‘Extended Gravitation’ theory purports to explain how gravity works at very large distances from our solar system.

PARAGUAY

A scientific paper on seeds and agriculture has been published in Paraguay in guaraní, an indigenous language used across Paraguay and in parts of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. The paper has won an award from the Brazilian Biometrics Society.