Under-ice flood speeds up glacier

Great floods beneath the Antarctic ice sheet can now be linked directly to the speed at which that ice moves towards the ocean, scientists say. Leigh Stearns and colleagues have been able to show how the giant Byrd Glacier in east Antarctica sped up just as two lakes under the ice overflowed. The flood water acts as a lubricant, easing the ice over the bedrock. The observation is described as critical because of how it informs our understanding of future sea levels. The more ice the polar regions dump in the ocean, the higher the waters will rise. The work of Dr Stearns and colleagues, reported in Nature Geoscience, indicates that Antarctica's under-ice plumbing system must now be an important consideration in ice dynamics.Fish catches being used as animal feed

An alarming new study in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources contends that fully one-third of the world's marine fish catches are ground up and fed to farm-raised fish, pigs, and poultry. The researchers involved say that this squandering of forage fish (anchovies, sardines, menhaden, and other small to medium sized fish) is rapidly worsening the already serious over fishing crisis in our oceans. The study notes that forage fish account for a staggering 37 percent (31.5 million tonnes) of all fish taken from the world's oceans each year, and 90 percent of that catch is processed into fishmeal and fish oil.