Appetite for frogs' legs harming wild populations - environment - 19 January 2009 - New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16446-appetite-for-frogs-legs-harming-wild-populations.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news ---

Are frogs being eaten to extinction? We're used to hearing about how disease, climate change, and habitat degradation are endangering amphibians, but conservationists are warning that frogs could be going the same way as the cod. Gastronomic demand, they report, is depleting regional populations to the point of no return.

David Bickford of the National University of Singapore and colleagues have called for more regulation and monitoring in the global frog meat market in order to avoid species being "eaten to extinction".

Crown-of-thorns starfish actually four species | Practical Fishkeeping magazine

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1879 ---
A study published in the latest issue of the journal Biology Letters
has identified the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), a
species thought to be widely distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific,
to consist of a species complex with as many as four species.

Fiddler Crabs Know How To Bluff | Scientific Blogging

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/fiddler_crabs_know_how_bluff
--- Dishonesty may be more widespread in the animal kingdom than
previously thought. A team of Australian ecologists has discovered
that some male fiddler crabs "lie" about their fighting ability by
growing claws that look strong and powerful but are in fact weak and
puny.

Gallery: Shortlisted pictures of unsustainable living - earth - 21 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn15002-gallery-shortlisted-pictures-of-unsustainable-living-.html?feedId=online-news_rss20 --- international photography award for images that focus on sustainability. It launched this year and is presided over by Kofi Annan, Nobel laureate and former secretary general of the United Nations. Shortlisted images will begin a global tour in November 2008.

Turf Wars: Sand And Corals Don't Mix

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008095708.htm --- When reef fish get a mouthful of sand, coral reefs can drown.

That's the latest startling evidence to emerge from research into the likely fate of reefs under climate change and rising sea levels, at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).

 "We've known for a while that having a lot of sediment in the water is bad for corals and can smother them.  What we didn't realize is how permanent this state of affairs can become, to the point where it may prevent the corals ever re-establishing," says Professor David Bellwood of CoECRS and James Cook University.

The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters. - By Rose George - Slate Magazine

http://www.slate.com/id/2201466/entry/0/ --- Of all the peoples of the world, the Chinese are probably the most at home with their excrement. They know its value. For 4,000 years they have used raw human feces to fertilize fields. China's use of "night soil," as the Chinese rightly call a manure that is collected after dark, is probably the reason that its soils are still healthy after four millennia of intensive agriculture, while other great civilizations—the Maya, for one—floundered when their soils turned to dust.

Bumblebees left paranoid by disguised spiders - life - 05 September 2008 - New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14672-bumblebees-left-paranoid-by-disguised-spiders.html --- Bumblebees that have been attacked by camouflaged spiders reduce their foraging speed and are wary even of safe areas. Crab spiders are one of the major predators of bumblebees. They lie in wait in flowers which the bees need to visit to collect nectar, and are difficult to spot because they can change colour to match their surroundings.