Elephant seal’s dive behaviour changing
Global warming is having an effect on the dive behaviour and search for food of southern elephant seals. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association cooperating in a joint study with biologists and oceanographers from the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town have discovered that the seals dive deeper for food when in warmer water. The scientists attribute this behaviour to the migration of prey to greater depths and now wish to check this theory using a new sensor which registers the feeding of the animals below water.
555 million women were hungry on International Women’s Day
555 million women go hungry worldwide, according to estimates released today by the World Development Movement to mark International Women’s Day. An estimated 60 per cent of the world’s 925 million hungry people are women, and 315,000 women die annually in childbirth due to lack of iron.
Financial speculation by banks and hedge funds is fuelling food price
Food prices in 2011 were 24 per cent higher than in 2010, driving more people into hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Financial speculation by banks and hedge funds is fuelling food price volatility and driving up prices. The US has already moved to limit speculation under the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act, and the European Commission has proposed similar controls. But the UK government is blocking the EU measures.