Subscription Center
Jul 30, 2009 | 6
The globe’s fisheries have taken a deep nose-dive in the past few decades. But a new paper, to be published in tomorrow’s Science, finds that improved management is finally beginning to pull some stocks back from the brink.
Fish stocks increased in five out of the 10 systems studied, the authors report in the two-year study.
“This paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause,” lead study author Boris Worm, of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, said in a prepared statement. “It’s only a start—but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring over-fishing under control.”
In 2006, Worm had predicted a full collapse of global fisheries by 2048.
Jan 15, 2009 | 3
Policymakers may not intend to keep us trim when they're pondering how to manage fisheries and other wild food resources. But a new study indicates that our current food-harvesting practices are making the stuff we eat smaller—very quickly.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that plants and animals being harvested aggressively around the world from the wild (rather than from farms) are changing more than two and a half times faster than would be expected under natural conditions.
"Two and a half times is pretty big," says Stephan Munch, an assistant professor of fisheries ecology at Stony Brook University in Long Island, N.Y.
Scientists have long assumed that humans can—and do—affect the plants and animals that live around us (with pollution and by introducing invasive species). But this new work, which analyzed data from dozens of other studies, found that our intense food-gathering practices have substantially changed the size and breeding schedule of at least 29 species in as few as 20 years.
See what we're tweeting about
mdichristina Thames, yesterday afternoon. http://t.co/jUr9rDwuuT
BecCrew RT @mollylambert Thee Ratchet List http://t.co/PcY7tam7Ux
kahoakes Charted: distances driven by robots on the moon and Mars http://t.co/EK5WjQpTAr
Deadline: Jun 30 2013
Reward: $1,000,000 USD
This is a Reduction-to-Practice Challenge that requires written documentation and&
Deadline: Jul 25 2013
Reward: Varies
This challenge provides an opportunity for Solvers to build a web-based or mobile “app” to explore data relationships in scholarly conte
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
