Environment

• Thursday, September 30th 2010 - 02:20 UTC

  Improved animal breeds and feed helps reduce “carbon hoof-print”, say FAO experts

  

  Soaring carbon emissions from a meat-hungry developing world could be cut back substantially by improving animal breeds and feed, according to a study. Demand for livestock products is predicted to double by 2050 as a result of growing populations, urbanisation and better income in the developing world, leading to rise in emissions from the industry.

• Friday, September 24th 2010 - 03:08 UTC

  Argentine Patagonia fossil reveals the origin of sunflower

  

  Sunflowers are likely to have sprung up about 50 million years ago in Argentine Patagonia, suggests a fossil report according to an article in the current edition of Science magazine.

• Thursday, September 23rd 2010 - 04:51 UTC

  Argentina ignores Paraguay; builds new canal to pump water from shared river

  

  Landlocked and Mercosur member Paraguay will formally complain to its peer Argentina the non consulted and unilateral decision to build a canal adjacent to a shared river that acts as a natural border and provides both sides’ agriculture and ecosystems with a vital water supply.

• Wednesday, September 22nd 2010 - 03:12 UTC

  Stowaway owl in the world’s largest cruise vessel returned to its habitat

  

  Florida State wildlife officials were called to the world's largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, to deal with a little stowaway – a burrowing owl.

• Thursday, September 16th 2010 - 21:50 UTC

  Activists show evidence of whale meat trade in the Faroe Islands

  

  For the first time animal activists have shown evidence that an open and a black market in whale meat exists on the Faroe Islands. The animal protection activists Andreas Morlok (Project Whale Protection Action – ProWal) and Juergen Ortmueller (Whale and Dolphin-Protection-Forum – WDSF) (*) discovered on these islands, under the pretext of being anglers, that the pilot whale hunt nowadays has nothing to do with the old traditions which the hunters claim to be following.

• Thursday, September 16th 2010 - 21:27 UTC

  Efforts to protect ozone layer from depletion have been successful, says UN

  

  International efforts to protect the ozone layer shielding life on Earth from harmful levels of ultraviolet rays have stopped additional ozone losses, potentially averting scores of millions of cases of skin cancer and eye cataracts, according to a new United Nations report released today.

• Thursday, September 16th 2010 - 21:25 UTC

  Distribution of land deeds among locals defuses conflict in Chile’s Easter Island

  

  Chile’s Interior Ministry Undersecretary Rodrigo Ubilla announced this week that more than 30 Easter Island title deeds will be delivered to Rapa Nui families within the next 60 days.

• Wednesday, September 15th 2010 - 06:00 UTC

  Canada hosts first world conference on survival of threatened seabirds

  

  Concern for the survival of albatrosses, penguins, and other marine birds gathered scientists from 40 countries to the first World Seabird Conference in Victoria, western Canada. The five-day event was sponsored by 26 professional seabird groups and societies from around the world.

• Saturday, September 11th 2010 - 23:02 UTC

  Twenty tons of drilling shafts trucked 4.100 km to help rescue Chilean miners

  

  Three trucks transporting special shafts for drilling equipment to be used in the rescue of the 33 miners trapped 700 metres underground in northern Chile, left from Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile.

• Friday, September 10th 2010 - 03:28 UTC

  Invasive “killer shrimp” discovered at water reservoirs in England

  

  A killer shrimp has been found for the first time in the UK at an Anglian Water reservoir in Cambridgeshire, England. Two anglers spotted the shrimp, which can be as small as three mm, at Grafham Water near St Neots on Friday September 3 and sent samples to the Environment Agency for identification.