Time to start worrying about fish

From Australian Policy Online:

The global fishing industry is unsustainable, writes Sarah Burnside in Eureka Street

AS PETER SINGER and Jim Mason noted in their 2006 book The Ethics of What We Eat, even conscientious omnivores can find it difficult to concern themselves with animals who occupy remote underwater places and are, on the whole, decidedly not cute.

In the Australian context, fishing and aquaculture are the nation's fifth most valuable rural industry. The website for the Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry notes cautiously: 'The challenge is to develop the industry while ensuring the sustainability of Australia's marine ecosystem.'

There is a growing awareness that the scale of the global fishing industry is unsustainable. Fishing is second only to climate change as the greatest environmental threat to marine ecosystems...

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Junk food turns rats into addicts

A study about the addictive qualities of junk food found the affect it has on the the brain is similar to that of heroine.

I knew it! It's not MY fault - blame the chips!

After just five days on the junk food diet, rats showed “profound reductions” in the sensitivity of their brains’ pleasure centers, suggesting that the animals quickly became habituated to the food. As a result, the rats ate more food to get the same amount of pleasure. Just as heroin addicts require more and more of the drug to feel good, rats needed more and more of the junk food. “They lose control,” Kenny says. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”