Biodiversity

"Earth-friendly perennial grain crops, which grow with less fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, and erosion than grains planted annually, could be available in two decades, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the journal Science."

"About 50,000 sea turtle eggs from beaches in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama will be dug up and moved to Florida's Atlantic Coast in hopes of keeping the hatchlings alive in the face of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill."

"Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood."

"The nations of East and Central Africa and some of the world's largest conservation organizations have developed a 10-year conservation action plan to save thousands of endangered eastern chimpanzees."

"A single Asian carp has been found for the first time beyond the electric barriers constructed to keep the dreaded invasive species out of the Great Lakes, state and federal officials announced Wednesday."

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a federal judge had erred in prohibiting the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa seed until a federal government agency completed a detailed environmental review."

As nations meet in Morocco to consider whether to ban or allow whaling under the International Whaling Commission, Japan's bid to continue whaling is a hot issue. Despite Japan's defiant insistence on whale-hunting, few if any Japanese have any desire for whale meat.

"Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again."

"The EPA, declaring that endosulfan is unsafe for farm workers, moves to ban one of the last organochlorine pesticides left in the United States. Like DDT, endosulfan accumulates in the environment and in the bodies of people and wildlife, and is transported around the world to remote places."

An armada of crop-dusters is poised to attack billions of hungry high plains and Rocky Mountain grasshoppers in what is seen as the biggest plague in a generation.