Court Curbs Endangered Species Act Authority

            On the day before Thanksgiving, the district court in Arizona reversed its new laws about consultation requirements in the Endangered Species Act. It was reversed after the court said that the ESA did not have that kind of power. Under the ESA, it is required that any discovery or possible trials must be consulted with two other federal agencies of endangered species. These federal agencies include the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Some environmental groups claim the EPA is failing to consult these two agencies. These groups have been using the ESA instead to help clean up pesticides by giving the impacts they have on endangered species. Many environmentalists call for the EPA to review their re-registration decisions to prevent the use of pesticides that may be affecting endangered species. The court decided that FIFRA trumps both of these organizations. FIFRA has the power to challenge EPA registration reviews if they feel the pesticides are harming the environment.

http://farmfutures.com/blogs.aspx?fcb=23&fcbp=2831&fcbpc=0&s=10/28/2011&e=12/28/2011

Dairy food safety is primary concern

            Chairman of the Dairy Food Safety Victoria (DFSV) in Australia Shirley Harlock  and chief executive Catherine Hollywell said that after the annual general meeting, research into the food safety industry could help prevent disease outbreaks due to contaminated food. One disease that is trying to be prevented in the H1N1 virus which was recently found in contaminated vegetables in Europe. Coming up with the technology to detect these diseases early would be a great benefit to the dairy industry. This technology would help reduce the numbers of disease outbreaks due to contaminated dairy. This would also help create food standard on dairy throughout Australia. DFSV is also trying to create control points for these standards which will create an equivalent of raw milk to pasteurized milk.

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2011/11/17/406951_dairy.html

For a planet of 7 billion, controlling population growth critical

            The need to control population growth has become even greater because we have reached seven billion people. Because the world is so overpopulated, hunger and poverty has been becoming more prevalent in today’s society. There are two possible solutions that could help solve this problem. The first solution is technological. This would be to create resource-saving technologies that would provide enough resources for everyone. The Earth easily has enough resources for everyone, but are not being used wisely. The US alone can provide enough food for the entire planet, however, the majority of it is fed to livestock which only passes 10% of its consumed energy to humans. The other solution would be to slow down population growth by preventing it in the first place. This involves reducing birth rates and protecting human rights, such as the status of women in a society. Also proper education and family planning could help stabilize the world’s population. This will make it so that every child can be well-fed and educated.

http://www.utulsa.edu/collegian/article.asp?article=5192

Clever Eurasian jays plan for the future

            Recent experiments show that Eurasian store food that will later be unavailable to them in the future. Although they are not the first birds to be seen doing this, this is the first definitive proof of it happening. Animals planning for future events are called “mental time travel.” Previous experiments showed that the jays would store the food away after being fed so much of it that they became sick of it. However, the birds may have just figured out which foods store better than others. This new experiment was designed to get rid of that possibility. On the first day of the experiment, the birds were given two boxes to hide food, which is the mixed pile of raisins and peanuts. On day two, they were only given one box and were only given raisins and on day three were only given the other box and peanuts. On the final day, they were fed a pile of peanuts until they were sick of them and then allowed to go store food. Instead of completely ignoring the peanuts, they stored both foods in separate boxes because they planned ahead. This shows how the jays thought that the food may be unavailable in the future and since they will not eat it now, they will be better off storing it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15536611