News
The number of news found: 48.
02/28/2009 BABY SEAL HUNTING BANNED IN NORTHERN RUSSIA
The government has banned the hunting of baby seals in the regions surrounding the White Sea. "It is clear that it should have been banned a long time ago," said Putin at a meeting with the Minister of Natural Resources. Putin acknowledged the importance of the hunting industry in the region and said that he would require the government to compensate incomes of the White Sea people in connection with the ban on hunting. "This is one of their means of existence. Therefore, simply banning is inadequate. A system of support measures must be worked out to secure employment and income of those who live and work there," said Putin. Many of the residents around the White Sea depend on sales from the seals, especially their fat, for survival. The Ministry of Natural Resources is also preparing proposals to ban the hunting of seals up to the age of one.
02/27/2009 MEPS TO VOTE ON PARTIAL BAN ON SEAL PRODUCTS
The European Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee will vote on March 2 on whether to limit EU trade in seal products to goods that can be labelled as "seal-friendly." Diana Wallis, a UK Liberal MEP who is drafting the Parliament's report on the issue, said that a labelling scheme for these products - skin, meat, fat and oils - would be preferable to the European Commission's original proposal for an almost total ban. Greens and some other Liberals on the committee disagree with her, claiming that a total ban, with an exception for Inuits, is the only way to ensure the humane treatment of seals. But the Council of Minister's legal service is understood to be questioning whether the EU treaties provide any basis for banning all seal products - a position that would make a seal-welfare labelling scheme more likely than a total ban. A coalition of northern member states also opposes a ban, arguing that seals are not an endangered species and that they need culling to protect local fish stocks. Making dead seals into products would be a more "sustainable" way of disposing of the bodies, they say.
02/26/2009 NEPAL WON'T ALLOW MONKEY EXPORTS
The parliament committee has ordered Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation to stop the process of export of rhesus monkeys. The natural resource and management committee has called Mr. Shyam Bajimaya DG of Department of National park and wildlife conservation and Mr. Prabesh Man Shrestha, Chief; Nepal Biomedical Research Centre, who asked for the permission to export rhesus and ordered them to stop the process. The centre was continuously requesting for the permission to export monkeys. According to the present Acts and Laws of the country, the committee has concluded that, it is not liable to export wildlife including monkeys to the third countries. Centre has been requesting for the permission for export of 25 monkeys to the "Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research" for biomedical research since three years.
02/25/2009 HEAVY SNOW KILLS MORE THAN 8,000 CATTLE IN NW CHINA
Heavy snow has killed 8,160 cattle in northwest China 's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region this month, local authorities said. Low temperatures and avalanches after four snowfalls in Yili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture had killed the cattle, Yu Donghua, a prefecture husbandry and veterinary bureau official, said Monday. In total, 891 houses and 435 cattle sheds collapsed in the snow and 3,531 houses were at risk, he said. "Although the continuous snow has alleviated the drought, it is a disaster for cattle during the calving period," he said. The Yili prefecture government has relocated 1,420 households and 38,814 cattle to safe areas and allocated 170,000 tonnes of fodder and feed to the snow-hit areas.
02/25/2009 70 ILL FROM TAINTED PIG ORGANS
At least 70 people in one Chinese province have suffered food poisoning in recent days after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned food additive, state-run media reported Monday. Health officials in the Guangdong province in southeast China said most were treated at hospitals and released, but at least three people remained hospitalized, the China Daily newspaper reported. The victims complained of stomach aches and diarrhea after eating pig organs bought in local markets since Thursday, China's Xinhua news agency reported. A local health official said initial investigations indicated that the pig organs were contaminated by clenbuterol, an additive that is banned in pig feed in China. Three people were detained for suspected involvement in raising and selling contaminated pigs, authorities said.
02/24/2009 MANILA TO SLAUGHTER 6,000 PIGS TO STOP EBOLA SPREAD
The Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of capital Manila to prevent the potential spread of Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday. This is the first time Ebola-Reston has been found in pigs. Pigs are worrisome because they are mixing vessels for many types of viruses and bacteria and if left uncontrolled, experts fear Ebola-Reston could mutate into a form that is more transmissible among people.
02/24/2009 SPANISH JUSTICE MINISTER RESIGNS AFTER HUNTING TRIP WITH JUDGE
Spain's Justice Minister has resigned after mounting criticism of a hunting trip he took with the crusading judge Baltasar Garzon, who was in the middle of an investigation into political corruption. The Justice Minister, who apologised for hunting without a licence, faces a fine of up to ?4,000 euros (£3,500) if convicted.
02/21/2009 MEPS SET TO BACK INTERNATIONAL WHALING BAN
MEPs are calling for tough new measures to be taken against whaling. In a market where 1000 whales are killed each year for commercial purposes, British Liberal Elspeth Attwooll is proposing stricter penalties to deter pro-whaling countries. The reasons for the dwindling whale figures are varied and many. One of the key contributing factors is commercial whaling. In 1986 the International Whaling Commission banned all commercial whaling. However, not all countries signed up and many still flaunt the ban by embarking on "scientific whaling projects," which skirts the ban by killing the whales for study. There is some evidence that carcasses from scientific whaling manage to find their way onto the consumer market. Elspeth Attwooll in her own initiative report says the IWC ban on whaling should continue, but calls for an end to the use of lethal scientific whaling methods.
02/20/2009 MARINE LIFE TO CHANGE IN COMING DECADES
Climate-driven environmental changes could drastically affect the distribution of more than 1,000 species of commercial fish and shellfish around the world, scientists say. For the first time, researchers using computer models have been able to predict the effect that warming oceans, fed by greenhouse-gas emissions, could have on marine biodiversity on a global scale. A new study predicts that by 2050, large numbers of marine species will migrate from tropical seas toward cooler waters - specifically the Arctic and Southern Ocean - at an average rate of 40 to 45 kilometers (about 25 to 28 miles) per decade. These migrations could lead to "numerous extinctions" of marine species outside the Arctic and Antarctic, especially in tropical waters, according to the study's projections.
02/20/2009 MONSTER FISH: "EVOLUTION ON STEROIDS" IN CONGO
Goliath tiger fish are among the uniquely adapted "monster fish" of the Congo River, which winds through several African countries. A recent, unprecedented river run on the Congo yielded a raft of new discoveries, including different species - some potentially new - in nearly every nook and cranny, scientists announced this week. The river was also found to be possibly the world's deepest, and its extraordinary changes in depths and currents help explain why it's such a hotbed of fish diversity. "What we're seeing here is kind of evolution on steroids," said team leader Melanie Stiassny, a fish biologist at the American Museum of Natural History. Stiassny, a member of the National Geographic Society's Conservation Trust, was among the marine and evolutionary biologists, hydrologists, and kayakers who conducted the exhaustive research in summer 2008.
02/19/2009 SAVING JAGUARS AND TIGERS CAN PREVENT HUMAN DISEASES?
A decline in top-level predators such as the jaguar can lead to a boom in prey populations that encourages the spread of disease. Some of those diseases can then become zoonotic, jumping from animals to humans. HIV, West Nile virus, and avian influenza, for example, are "reemerging diseases which have always been in the environment, but [until recently] they've been kept in check and didn't bleed over into human populations," Rabinowitz said. As part of its broader efforts to protect big cats, New York-based Panthera has partnered with the Mount Sinai Medical Center to train doctors in the human-health benefits of saving the animals.
02/19/2009 ODD, IDENTICAL SPECIES FOUND AT BOTH POLES
Spinning a "mucus net" off its paddle-like foot-wings to trap algae and other foods, the swimming snail species Limacina helicinia is no bigger than a bean. But the discovery that it and at least 234 other species inhabit both Arctic and Antarctic waters is big news to biologists. Finding so many species inhabiting both Poles "startled" scientists, according to a statement from the Census of Marine Life, an international project to assess all marine life - past, present, and future - by 2010. Among the other dual-Pole species: whales, worms, and crustaceans. Exactly where these species came from and how they ended up a world apart - with comparatively warm oceans in between - remains a mystery, the scientists said.
02/18/2009 FUTURE TECH MAY REDUCE BIRD-PLANE COLLISIONS
To protect future flights, scientists are hard at work on ways to keep birds away from planes. Most of today's anti-bird-strike efforts are ground-based, focusing on making airports less inviting to birds by removing ponds, exterminating the bugs birds eat, firing noise cannons, installing artificial owls, and so on. But the next frontier in bird-strike prevention is the sky. Bird-disturbing radar, pulsing lights, and reflective coatings may someday make aircraft more visible to birds, so they have time to dodge oncoming planes, according to Bradley Blackwell, a wildlife biologist and bird-strike expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Wildlife Research Center in Sandusky, Ohio.
02/18/2009 SALAMANDERS "COMPLETELY GONE" DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING?
Two common species surveyed in the 1970s in cloud forests of southern Mexico and Guatemala are extinct, and several others have plummeted in number, researchers say. The tiny amphibians seem to be on the same downward spiral as their frog cousins, which have been mysteriously declining for years. Scientists have identified chytrid, a fast-killing fungus that may spread in waves, as responsible for wiping out frogs around the world. Others have said that climate change is shifting temperatures and humidity, factors intricately tied to amphibian survival. But among the Central American salamanders, "we have no evidence that either chytrid or climate change is responsible for the declines," said study author David Wake, an biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
02/17/2009 WORLD'S OLDEST SWAN FOUND DEAD IN DENMARK
What was probably the world's oldest mute swan has been found dead in Denmark. This unusual example of Denmark's national bird lived to just past the ripe old age of 40. The previous record for a mute swan was 28 years old.
02/16/2009 PUBLIC SCHOOL OFFERS FEES DISCOUNT FOR VEGETARIAN STUDENTS
Parents whose children sign up to the "Vegetarian Scholarship" could save £1,500 each year at Wycliffe College in Stonehouse, Glos. The "progressive" school was founded by a vegetarian Methodist minister in 1882, and today's governors hope the new incentive will keep his values alive. But spokesman Melanie Gray admitted the offer has not gone down too well, with pupils preferring steak and sausages to pasta and peppers. She said vegetarians are well catered for at the school, though there is no compulsion to go without meat or fish. Many of the staff are vegetarian, though no sixth former has taken up the offer of the vegetarian scholarship.
02/16/2009 JAGUAR FIRST SEEN IN CENTRAL MEXICO SINCE 1900
The largest cat in the Americas is alive and well in the heart of Mexico, scientists say. Three photographs of a male jaguar and exactly 132 poop samples are the first known evidence of the animal since the early 1900s. The big cat was snapped by a camera trap in the Sierra Nanchititla Natural Reserve. Jaguars have disappeared from much of Mexico as humans have chopped up their habitat and sometimes killed the animals for the illegal wildlife trade. Concerned that the big cat was locally extinct, an expedition team set out into the 260 square mile (674 square kilometer) reserve between 2002 and 2004. The team talked to villagers within the study area, but no one had reported seeing the elusive animal. That may be because the cats, which were photographed at 6,053 feet (1,845 meters), are forced by their diminishing habitat to travel across higher ground, said study leader Octavio Monroy-Vilchis of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico.
02/16/2009 MILLIONS OF ANIMALS FEARED DEAD IN AUSTRALIAN BUSH FIRES
Millions of animals are estimated to have died in the ferocious Black Saturday bushfires that swept across countryside, towns and farmland in Australia's southeast. Corpses of dead wallabies and kangaroos still lined roads in the worst-hit areas, with rescue crews were too busy to clear them from sight. There were also reports of birds and bats falling out of the sky during the fires. One turtle was found with its shell fused together. Another wallaby suffered singed ears. It is feared that many of the animals that managed to survive the inferno could still die from hunger, after all of their normal food sources were incinerated. Wildlife experts said wombats that had sheltered in their burrows to survive the blazes now faced starving to death unless they were rescued.
02/15/2009 TIME RUNNING OUT TO SAVE GALAPAGOS' DIVERSITY
Famed for their unique biological treasures, the Galapagos Islands face irreversible damage unless tourism is curbed, according to conservationists. On the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, the director of the Darwin Foundation says there is only a decade to avoid an ecological disaster. In a BBC interview, Gabriel Lopez calls for limits on the level of visitors. Last year, the number of tourists reached a record of 173,000, a four-fold increase over the past 20 years.
02/15/2009 SCIENTIST WORRIES THAT MEAT MAY INCREASE ALZHEIMER'S RISK
A scientist in DC has made a startling claim: there is a chance that humans are increasing their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Type II diabetes by eating certain meats (...) As scientists strongly suspect that other diseases can be transmitted from animals via misfolded proteins, investigating the link between meat and AD and diabetes may prove essential.
02/14/2009 KOALA LOVE STORY WINS HEARTS AFTED DEADLY FIRES
A love story between two badly burned koalas rescued from Australia's deadliest bushfires has provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation and the loss of over 180 lives. The story of Sam and her new boyfriend Bob emerged after volunteer firefighter Dave Tree used a mobile phone to film the rescue of the bewildered female found cowering in a burned out forest at Mirboo North, 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Melbourne. Colleen Wood from the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter that is caring for Sam and Bob said both koalas were doing well while other animals like possums, kangaroos, and wallabies were also starting to emerge from the debris. Wood said about 20 koalas had been brought into her shelter in recent days, several of whom had bonded as koalas are known to clump together, but none had garnered the same attention as the new Internet star Sam.
02/14/2009 CROYDON SCHOOL STOPS SERVING HALAL MEAT
Old Palace School is no longer serving Halal meat on its school menu after parents complained. The Whitgift Foundation's John Whitgift Schools committee took the decision after some parents were furious pupils were not being given a choice. The Halal method, in which animals are slaughtered by a single slit to the throat, is the only way of killing livestock allowed under Islam. But the method is deemed cruel by some animal-lovers, who object to the slow death it involves.
02/13/2009 LEONARDO RECEIVES AN INTERNATIONAL GREEN AWARD FROM CINEMA FOR PEACE
On Monday February 9, Leonardo DiCaprio was honored by Mikhail Gorbachev at the eighth annual Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin. Gorbachev presented Leonardo with an International Green Award for his extensive environmental work, and most recently his documentary "The 11th Hour." Since 2002 Cinema for Peace has been a worldwide initiative, promoting humanity through film while inviting members of the international film community to attend the annual Cinema for Peace Award-Gala-Night during the Berlin International Film Festival.
02/13/2009 TEN NEW AMPHIBIAN SPECIES DISCOVERED IN COLOMBIA
Ten new species of amphibians - including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs - have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, conservationists said. With amphibians under threat around the globe, the discovery was an encouraging sign and reason to protect the area where they were found, said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert at the environmental group Conservation International. The nine frog species and one salamander species were found in the mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien region near Colombia's border with Panama.
02/12/2009 ABOUT 200 STRANDED DOLPHINS RESCUED IN MANILA BAY
At least 200 melon-head dolphins flocked to shallow waters of Manila Bay on Tuesday, prompting a massive rescue by hundreds of volunteers and fishermen who used their boats and hands to drive them back to deep seas. The unusual occurrence may have been triggered by a sea quake that could have damaged the dolphins' eardrums and disoriented them, or the pod could have been following a sick or injured leader, Malcolm Sarmiento, director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, said. He said the dolphins - between 200 and 300 of them - were spotted about a mile off shore, swimming back and forth between Pilar and Orion townships in Bataan province. Fishermen and villagers trooped to the beach and waded into the chest-deep water, clapping their hands and hitting the surface to drive the dolphins away. More than 20 boats with their engines shut guided the animals to the open sea.
02/12/2009 DOZEN NEW TREE FROGS DISCOVERED IN RAPIDLY VANISHING HABITAT IN INDIA
A dozen frogs new to science were discovered in the forests of Western Ghats (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka. Goa, Maharashtra, and part of Gujarat). Amphibian researchers S D Biju of Delhi University, Systematics Lab and Franky Bossuyt of the Amphibian Evolution Lab of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel have published their discoveries in the latest issue of Zoological Journal of Linnean Society, London.
02/11/2009 VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE SURVIVER BECOMES A GLOBAL STAR
SAM became the most famous koala in the world when firefighter David Tree stopped to give her a drink amid the devastation. Pictures of Sam, who turned out to be female, travelled around the globe and featured in major newspapers including The New York Times, London's The Sun and on CNN. The image provided a much-needed picture of hope in a week filled with news of despair. Yesterday Sam was recovering in Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter. Mr Tree said he was in the middle of backburning at Mirboo North when he saw the stricken koala. "I could see she had sore feet and was in trouble, so I pulled over the fire truck. She just plonked herself down, as if to say 'I'm beat'," he said. "I offered her a drink and she drank three bottles. The most amazing part was when she grabbed my hand. I will never forget that."
02/11/2009 CHINA BECOMES LARGEST PORK IMPORTER IN HISTORY
In 2008, imports of pork and pork products to China represented the highest volume to any single country, according to U.S. Meat Export Federation. China's overseas purchases and imports of pork and pork products in calendar year 2008 were unprecedented, according to U.S. Meat Export Federation calculations from just-released Chinese trade data. Based on import totals from both China and Hong Kong, China imported 1.925 million metric tons (4.2 billion lbs.) of pork and pork products last year , including 1.161 million tons (nearly 2.6 billion lbs.) of pork variety meats and 764,000 tons (1.7 billion lbs.) of pork cuts. China's imports exceeded the previous single-year record of 1.022 million tons (2.2 billion lbs.) of pork imported by Japan in 2005.
02/10/2009 ZOO IS CHANGING ITS TUNE ON THE DEATHS OF 41 STINGRAYS
Nearly nine months after the 41 Stingrays died, the president of the Calgary Zoo tells the Calgary Sun he's almost certain human error was to blame. This is an about face from earlier claims that they couldn't pinpoint what killed the animals and probably would never have the answer. The Zoo's top dog, Clement Lanthier says he is 99.9% sure that the life support system for the aquarium had not been providing enough dissolved oxygen for the rays to survive. He admits that everything seemed fine for first few months, but the oxygen wasn't keeping up which would explain their blotchy appearance and sudden death.
02/10/2009 BUNNY LOVERS FREEING RABBITS FROM TRAPS
Trapped rabbits are being freed from their cages by people opposed to the city's eradication campaign, council heard on last Monday. And some property owners are refusing to let the traps be set up on their land. Such people are "interfering" with the efforts of a city-hired contractor to reduce the number of wild rabbits, pest control supervisor Ian Wilson told council. Nevertheless, the program is achieving results, with only an estimated 100-150 rabbits remaining from a peak population count last fall of more than 1,000. Virtually all of the rabbits have been killed, though a few dozen have been placed with animal protection groups opposed to the cull.
02/09/2009 ASHLEY JUDD SLAMS PALIN FOR "PROMOTING AERIAL KILLING OF WOLVES"
Ashley Judd has teamed-up with Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund to launch a Web-based campaign targeting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's 'anti-conservation agenda' and 'attack on wolves and bears'. In a video, the actress condemns Palin for allegedly promoting the aerial killing of wolves in Alaska, and goes so far as to accuse Palin of proposing bounties for severed forelegs of killed wolves.
02/09/2009 DUTCH REPORT 3RD DEATH FROM HUMAN FORM OF MAD COW
A third person has died in the Netherlands from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of mad cow disease, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) said. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a fatal brain disease in cattle, and it is believed humans can contract a fatal variation of it by eating infected parts of animals suffering from the disease.
02/08/2009 ANIMAL-HUMAN CLONES DON'T WORK
Researchers who tried to use mouse, cow and rabbit eggs to make human clones said the effort failed to produce workable embryos but added that they showed human cloning should work in principle. Mixing human and animal cells does not appear to program the egg properly, said Dr. Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology. But using human cells did reprogram the egg cell or oocyte and activate the genes needed to make a viable embryo, Lanza and colleagues reported in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells. Several teams have tried to make animal-human hybrids as a source of embryonic stem cells, the master cells of the body. Because human eggs are scarce - it requires a surgical procedure to get them from a woman - some scientists came up with the idea of using animal egg cells.
02/08/2009 PALIN'S EXTREME ANTI-CONSERVATION AGENDA TO BE EXPOSED
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund today launched a national campaign to expose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's renewed anti-conservation agenda. The Action Fund first highlighted Palin's record in Alaska during last fall's presidential campaign when it ran TV ads across battleground states, highlighting Palin's championing of the brutal and unnecessary aerial killing of wolves and other carnivores.
02/07/2009 LABRADOR IS FOSTER MOTHER TO SEVERAL SPECIES OF ANIMALS
Lisha the nine-year-old Labrador who lives at the Cango Wildlife Reserve in South Africa is currently caring for the motherless tiger cubs. But has also been called upon to look after no less than 30 orphans. These have ranged from pygmy hippos, a porcupine, cheetahs, a mongoose, serval kittens and even a barn owl.
02/07/2009 ORANGUTAN USES SHIRT TO ESCAPE ZOO ENCLOSURE
Using only a stretched green T-shirt and powerful upper-body strength, a Sumatran orangutan named Berani escaped from his Audubon Zoo enclosure for about 10 minutes. Employing a level of cunning that could have come from a prison movie, the brownish-orange primate stretched the shirt, scaled a 10 1/2-foot wall to the top of the moat, wrapped the shirt around the "hot" electrical wires surrounding the exhibit and swung out about 12:45 P.M., zoo spokeswoman Sarah Burnette said. Berani means "brave" in Bornean, Burnette said, but on Friday afternoon, it could have meant "reluctant." He was standing in the middle of the boardwalk for no more than 10 minutes and catapulted himself back into his exhibit. Aside from a possible sting when Berani brushed against a wire on his way back in, no one was injured.
02/06/2009 JAPANESE WHALERS FIRE WATER AT ACTIVISTS
Japanese whalers blasted water from a cannon at conservationists who hurled bottles of rancid butter and paint during a clash Monday in frigid Antarctic waters, officials said. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society also accused the whalers of throwing hunks of metal and golf balls at its members, lightly injuring two activists in the fracas. Japanese officials said only a water cannon was used. Japan, which has described the Sea Shepherd protesters as terrorists, plans to harvest up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this season. Under International Whaling Commission rules, the mammals may be killed for research but not for commercial purposes. Opponents say the Japanese research expeditions are simply a cover for commercial whaling, which was banned in 1986.
02/06/2009 6,000 ANIMALS SENT FROM BRAZIL TO LEBANON
6,000 cattle will be exported from Rio Grande/Brasil, to Beirut/Lebanon. The animals will have to endure a journey lasting 20 to 23 days, aboard the Panamanian ship Almawashi. The importers demand the delivery of live animals. 146,000 animals have been exported from Rio Grande since 2005.
02/05/2009 ISRAEL LARGEST VEAL-FARM IN BAZRA HAS CLOSED DOWN
The owners of the farm, the Leicht Family, decided to stop the cruel production of "special-fed"or "milk-fed" veal. They announced that their decision comes in the wake of a public relations campaign against them and the new regulations that have passed following the pressure on the government applied by Anonymous for Animal Rights.
02/05/2009 RACCOON BITES OFF PERVERTS PENIS
A raccoon has bitten off a pervert's penis as he was trying to rape the animal. Alexander Kirilov, 44, was on a drunken weekend with pals when he leapt on the terrified animal. "When I saw the raccoon I thought I'd have some fun," he told stunned casualty surgeons in Moscow. Now Russian plastic surgeons are trying to restore his mangled manhood. "He's been told they can get things working again but they can't sew back on what the raccoon bit off. That's gone forever so there isn't going to be much for them to work with," said one friend.
02/04/2009 WORLD HEADS FOR "WATER BANKRUPTCY"
The world is heading toward "water bankruptcy" as demand for the precious commodity outstrips even high population growth, a new report warned. In less than 20 years water scarcity could lose the equivalent of the entire grain crops of India and the United States, said the World Economic Forum report, which added that food demand is expected to sky-rocket in coming decades. "The world simply cannot manage water in the future in the same way as in the past or the economic web will collapse," said the report. Water requirements for energy are expected to grow by as much as 165 percent in the United States and 130 percent in the EU, putting a major "squeeze" on water for agriculture, said the WEF.
02/04/2009 BACON, HOT DOGS TIED TO LEUKEMIA RISK
Children who regularly eat cured meats like bacon and hot dogs may have a heightened risk of leukemia, while vegetables and soy products may help protect against cancer, a new study suggests. Researchers found that among 515 Taiwanese children and teenagers with and without acute leukemia, those who ate cured meats and fish more than once a week had a 74 percent higher risk of leukemia than those who rarely ate these foods. On the other hand, kids who often ate vegetables and soy products, like tofu, had about half the leukemia risk of their peers who shunned vegetables and soy. The findings, reported in the online journal BMC Cancer, point to an association between these foods and leukemia risk - but do not prove cause-and-effect. Long-term human studies, as well as animal studies, are still needed to see what role dietary factors have in leukemia development, explained Dr. David C. Christiani of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, one of the researchers of the group.
02/03/2009 HONEY BEES CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
The remarkable honey bee can tell the difference between different numbers at a glance. A fresh, astonishing revelation about the "numeracy" of insects has emerged from new research by an international team of scientists from The Vision Centre, in Australia.
02/03/2009 DUTCH CONSUMERS WANT END TO KILLING "LAYER MALES"
Sixty per cent of the public wanted to see an alternative to the killing of day-old male chicks from layer flocks, according to a survey published by Wageningen University. In the Netherlands, 30 million male chicks are killed at hatch, every year. From this result, three technological alternatives for killing day-old chicks, that would gain reasonable acceptance and support from society, have been identified, and will be the subject of further research.
02/02/2009 POSTMAN RESUES BABY OTTER
A postman who rescued a baby otter on a Scottish roadside took her on a 220-mile tour in his mailbag. Kenny Wilson, 50, of Tweedbank, in the Borders, spotted the cub - named Orla - lying on the A7 near Stow on Sunday. He stopped his car, popped her in his mailbag to keep her warm and then bought her kitten milk and fed her through the tube of a ballpoint pen. He then took the otter with him on a Mini car enthusiasts' rally before taking it to an animal rescue centre. The six-week-old otter was said to be doing well at the Arthurshiel centre near St Boswells in Roxburghshire.
02/02/2009 EMPEROR PENGUINS MARCH TOWARD EXTINCTION?
Popularized by the 2005 movie "March of the Penguins," emperor penguins could be headed toward extinction in at least part of their range before the end of the century, according to a paper by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The paper, co-authored by five researchers including WHOI biologists Stephanie Jenouvrier and Hal Caswell, uses mathematical models to predict the effect on penguins of climate change and the resulting loss of sea ice. The research indicates that if climate change continues to melt sea ice at the rates published in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the median population size of a large emperor penguin colony in Terre Adelie, Antarctica, likely will shrink from its present size of 3,000 to only 400 breeding pairs by the end of the century.
02/01/2009 BUTTERFLIES ACROSS EUROPE FACE CRISIS AS CLIMATE CHANGE LOOMS
Climate change will cause Europe to lose much of its biodiversity as projected by a comprehensive study on future butterfly distribution. The Climatic Risk Atlas of European Butterflies predicts northward shifts in potential distribution area of many European butterfly species.
02/01/2009 JAPAN NEGOTIATE OVER WHALING LIMITS
The United States is initiating a closed-door negotiation that could open up new areas to whale hunting for the first time in decades, part of an attempt to end a long-standing impasse over whaling limits with Japan, the world's most avid whaling nation. The tentative plan, outlined in documents obtained by The Washington Post, seeks to achieve a breakthrough in the dispute that has raged since the International Whaling Commission voted in 1986 to ban commercial whaling. Faced with the reality that Japan and its allies have continued to hunt whales and have succeeded in blocking new conservation efforts, commission Chairman William Hogarth - an appointee of President George W. Bush - tried last weekend in Hawaii to craft a pact that would permit a new type of "coastal whaling" in exchange for a commitment by Japan to scale back its "scientific" whale hunts. The proposal is running into stiff opposition from whaling opponents, however.
The number of news found: 48.
