Hi-tech devices tracked two small salmon on a 2,500-kilometre swim from the Rocky Mountains to Alaska in a step towards understanding fish migrations and protecting stocks, scientists said.
The two salmon, about 14 centimetres long and with almond-sized implants, swam down a tributary of the Columbia River in Idaho into the Pacific Ocean and north past a string of electronic listening devices during a three-month trip.
"We've demonstrated the ability to track animals about the size of a hot dog," Jim Bolger, executive director of the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) project, said. The fish swam the same distance as from Moscow to London.
"We're demonstrating the use of this array to see what's happening in the oceans. Previously we've been searching with a flashlight - now we feel we are turning on the lights."
Prisoner killed in bamboo jail escape
One prisoner was shot dead but a dozen more escaped from a Cameroonian jail built partially from bamboo, the central African country's prison service said.
The inmates escaped from Bamenda prison in northwest Cameroon on the night of October 26-27, Penitentiary Administration chief Francis Musi said.
"The detainees took advantage of very heavy rainfall in Bamenda that Sunday-to-Monday night, scaled the walls of their cell onto the roof, jumped down to the ground and broke through the bamboo wall that surrounds the prison," he said late on Monday.
A manhunt was under way to recapture the fugitives, whom he described as "well armed and very dangerous".
Big quake would cause toilet problem
A major quake in Tokyo would force millions of commuters to try to get home on foot, and their journey could be made more difficult by a dire shortage of toilets, a government panel warned in a report this week.
The report, which added that many areas of Tokyo would run short of toilet paper within 24 hours of a powerful quake, was splashed across the front page of the Sankei newspaper yesterday, under the headline "820,000 toilet refugees."
The capital's transport network would likely grind to a halt after a strong quake and water supply would be disrupted, making many of the capital's public conveniences unusable, the Cabinet Office disaster prevention panel said.
"The biggest problem faced by survivors of the Kobe earthquake was not food or clothing, but a lack of toilets," the panel said, referring to the 1995 quake in the western Japanese city, which killed more than 6,400 people. Lack of sanitation would not only be unpleasant, but would put quake victims at risk of disease, the report said.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone nations, accounting for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude six or greater. In 1923, a quake of magnitude 7.9 hit the Tokyo area, killing more than 140,000 people.
Tangerine sales go pear-shaped
China, trying to convince the world its food is safe, has now been hit by fruit fly rumours which have cost farmers millions of dollars in lost sales.
Tangerines, usually wildly popular at this time of year, are selling for less than one yuan (about €0.12) a kilo in Beijing and shoppers are still reluctant to buy while 1.6 million tonnes of unwanted fruit sit waiting for delivery trucks in the central province of Hubei.
"The scare has caused direct economic losses of 400 million yuan (€45.62 million) so far and the figure is expected to rise if the crisis does not end in a week," the China Daily quoted Chen Zhiqiang, a press official in Changde, a major producing area in southern Hunan province, as saying.
Li Chuanyou, secretary-general of the fruit industry association in Hubei, said about 70 per cent of the harvest had not been sold.
The panic was caused by rumours in the southwestern province of Sichuan last week that 10,000 tonnes of tangerines had to be destroyed because of fruit flies.
Manners improve in post-Olympics Beijing
Chinese researchers who spent 3,000 hours observing the public in Beijing say their behaviour shot to a new high of 82.68 on the "civilisation index" this year following a campaign to improve habits for the Olympics, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday. The score is up from a middling 65.21 in 2005, according to the study conducted by the Humanistic Olympics Studies Centre at People's University in Beijing.
Researchers found 97 per cent of residents willing to give directions to strangers this year, up 26 per cent from 2005, and said rates of spitting and cursing in public fell to less than one per cent during the Games.
Banners and notices hung throughout Beijing ahead of the Olympics encouraged habits like waiting in line for buses and assisting visitors to the city.
Lobster fishers feel pinch of global crisis
People eating in restaurants are spending less and avoiding pricier foods, which means you can now add Canada's lobster fishermen to the long list of those hurt by the global financial crisis.
The C$1 billion (€620 million) a year industry is struggling to cope with a slump in demand in the United States and Europe that has pushed wholesale prices in some places down to levels not seen in 25 years or more.
"A lot of lobster is eaten in restaurants and restaurant sales are very sluggish, we're told," said Denny Morrow, head of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. (With) this financial meltdown and the constant barrage of negative economic news... I think consumers are choosing not to buy the high-end items," he said, adding that demand for live lobster at this time of year is usually high.