Shanty Dreams

A Quest for the Forgotten Stories of the Tennessee River. By Clay Duda. (July 21, 2016)

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Ocean-cleaning sea bins will gobble up plastic waste to recycle

Bins designed to suck up debris floating on the sea are in the final stages of testing, shame they won’t make it to Rio in time to clean up dirty waters at the Olympics. By Alice Klein.

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Breakthrough solar cell captures carbon dioxide and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy.

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Weaving the Bridge at Q’eswachaka

Every year, local communities on either side of the Apurimac River Canyon use traditional Inka engineering techniques to rebuild the Q'eswachaka Bridge. The old bridge is taken down and the new bridge is built in only three days. The bridge has been rebuilt in this same location continually since the time of the Inka.

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The Case For Leaving City Rats Alone

Kaylee Byers crouches in a patch of urban blackberries early one morning this June, to check a live trap in one of Vancouver’s poorest areas, the V6A postal code. Her first catch of the day is near a large blue dumpster on “Block 5,” in front of a 20-some-unit apartment complex above a thrift shop. Across the alley, a building is going up; between the two is an overgrown, paper and wrapper-strewn lot. In the lot, there are rats. “Once we caught two in a single trap,” she says, peering inside the cage.

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American student finds 12th century Irish brooch on a Galway Beach

McKenna McFadden was walking on the shore of Oney Island when she stumbled across a treasure from the 12th century.

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1,400-Square-Foot Roman Mosaic of Hercules’s Labors Found in Cyprus

Construction crews working on the sewage system beneath the southern coastal city of Larnaca in Cyprus recently found themselves face-to-face with Roman-era scenes of toil: a large-scale mosaic floor of the Labors of Hercules dating to the 2nd century CE.

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The Archdruid Report: Climate Change Activism: A Post-Mortem

"The only commitments any nation was willing to make amounted to slowing, at some undetermined point in the future, the rate at which the production of greenhouse gas pollutants is increasing. In the real world, meanwhile, enough greenhouse gases have already been dumped into the atmosphere to send the world’s climate reeling…" By John Michael Greer.

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Ice Age Hunting Camp, Replete With Bird Bones and Tobacco, Found in Utah Desert

In the dead-flat desert of northwestern Utah, archaeologists have uncovered a scene from a distant, and more verdant, time.

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Trees talk to each other and recognize their offspring

The Lorax might have spoken for the trees, but it turns out that trees can speak for themselves. At least to other trees, that is.

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England's plastic bag usage drops 85% since 5p charge introduced

Number of single-use bags handed out dropped to 500m in first six months since charge, compared with 7bn the previous year

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The advantages of using wooden pathways in your garden

Duckboards keep your shoes clean and your weeds at bay — and they’re rearrangeable.

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Meet the nudibranch: Seven reasons these 'naked' gastropods are more than pretty faces

Nudibranchs, a group of soft-bodied and immensely colourful molluscs, are often mistaken for sea slugs. But these gastropods couldn't be more different — or more interesting.

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The Weird and Wonderful World of Renzo Picasso

A little-known Italian architect wanted to build seven-layer "superstreets" through American cities.

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Family of Otters Try to Catch Butterfly

Some weapons grade cuteness for your Friday.

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Where are the world’s most water-stressed cities?

More than 2.5 billion people don’t have access to basic levels of fresh water for at least one month each year – a situation growing ever more critical as urban populations expand rapidly

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What Happened to Google Maps?

Justin O'Beirne explores some surprising changes to Google's cartography.

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Reef sharks in French Polynesia rely on annual mass grouper spawning for food

Up to 900 reef sharks survive in one of the most untouched reef environments in the world, researchers have found.

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Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming

For those of us who are concerned about global warming, two of the most critical questions we ask are, “how fast is the Earth warming?” and “how much will it warm in the future?”. The first question can be answered in a number of ways. For instance, we can actually measure the rate of energy increase in the Earth’s system (primarily through measuring changing ocean temperatures). Alternatively, we can measure changes in the net inflow of heat at the top of the atmosphere using satellites. We can also measure the rate of sea-level rise to get an estimate of the warming rate.

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New York City Battles on Against Dutch Elm Disease

To many people in New York City, a beautiful summer day is all about the trees. To be more specific, the American elm trees in the Central Park Mall, which form a promenade through the heart of the park. The beauty, though, is not everlasting. Like elm trees across the globe, the elms in Central Park are stricken with a ruthless beetle–fungus alliance known as Dutch elm disease.

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The Definitive Ranking of Livestream Wildlife Cams

We witnessed sad sharks, baby bison in danger, and more puffins than any one person deserves to see in a day—and we've determined which stream should occupy your 24 hours.

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English Bulldogs Have Reached a Genetic Dead End

An upsetting new analysis now shows that these stocky, wrinkly-faced dogs lack the genetic diversity required to improve the breed, and that their current level of health is as good as it’s ever going to get.

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Are We the Only Animals That Understand Ignorance?

Two psychologists argue that while apes and monkeys can think about the minds of others, they lack one crucial ability that only humans have. By Ed Yong.

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Warnings of imminent extinction crisis for largest wild animal species

A team of conservation biologists is calling for a worldwide strategy to prevent the unthinkable: the extinction of the world's largest mammal species.

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The unfolding water crisis at the Third Pole

At the top of the world a climate disaster is unfolding that threatens the lives of more than a billion people. By Matthew Carney.

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Two new highly adorned spiky ant species discovered in New Guinea

The distinctive dorsal spines found on two new species of highly adorned Pheidole ants may help to support the ants' massive heads, according to a study published July 27, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eli Sarnat, Georg Fischer and Evan Economo from the Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology Graduate University, Japan.

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Getting tomatoes to ripen without going soft

Targeting one gene helps keep the plant's cell wall intact for longer.

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Cockroach milk: The drink you didn't know you've been missing

A little cockroach milk with those cookies? Chock full of protein, the insect milk may someday be transformed into a food supplement worthy of human consumption, new research indicates. Scientists have found that the Pacific Beetle Cockroach feeds its bug babies a formula which is remarkably rich in protein, fat and sugar. Don't expect to find it next to the regular milk in the dairy section, however, at least not for now. "Any liquid harvested from a cockroach is not true milk.

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Venezuela food shortages leave zoo animals hungry

Some 50 animals have starved to death in the last six months at one of Venezuela's main zoos, according to a union leader, due to chronic food shortages that have plagued the crisis-stricken South American nation.

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Leading insecticide cuts bee sperm by almost 40%, study shows

Discovery provides possible explanation for increasing deaths of honeybees in recent years, according to scientists. By Damian Carrington.

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19th-Century Schoolgirls Were Incredibly Good at Drawing Maps

Many schools required students to trace or re-create maps in order to learn skills that may have helped them later in life.

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A stunning prediction of climate science — and basic physics — may now be coming true

NASA researchers suggest sea levels may be plunging around Greenland because of ice loss and a resulting decline in gravitational pull.

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DNA Study Says Only One Kind of Wolf in North America: The Gray Wolf

The finding highlights the shortcomings of laws intended to protect endangered species that don’t take into account research of the evolution of species. By Carl Zimmer.

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10 Discoveries Almost Lost To Time

The vast majority of historical cultures have been lost in time. Some pieces of history that almost slipped through the cracks have allowed us to learn more about what we do and don’t know.

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North Texas family reunited with dog 7 years after it went missing

A North Texas family was reunited with their dog almost seven years after he went missing. Corky left the Montez family's Decatur-area home in mid-2009. The family searched for him for six months before they had to move to Fort Worth, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported. "We knew he was microchipped and he had a collar, so we were just waiting for one day he would come home," Kimberly Montez told NBC5.

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South Africa: Tembisa Tornado - 100 Injured, 400 Houses Uprooted

At least 100 people have been injured and 400 homes destroyed after a tornado hit the Tembisa township in the East Rand, government has said.

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The waste mountain of coffee cups

The millions of coffee cups we use every day are, in effect, virgin materials with a single use, thrown almost immediately into the bin - a horrendous waste, with a hefty carbon footprint. These poly-lined cups are, technically, capable of being recycled - a fact that enables coffee companies to describe them as "recyclable". However, the reality is this is only possible in a highly specialised recycling facility - of which there are only two in the UK. One of these sites has never actually dealt with a single paper cup - the other has processed a very tiny number.

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What lies beneath: Venus’ surface revealed through the clouds

Using observations from ESA’s Venus Express satellite, scientists have shown for the first time how weather patterns seen in Venus’ thick cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below. Rather than acting as a barrier to our observations, Venus’ clouds may offer insight into what lies beneath.

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Mysterious New Whale Species Discovered in Alaska

Like many good mysteries, this one started with a corpse, but the body in question was 24 feet (7.3 meters) long. The remains floated ashore in June of 2014, in the Pribilof Islands community of St. George, a tiny oasis of rock and grass in the middle of Alaska's Bering Sea. A young biology teacher spotted the carcass half-buried in sand on a desolate windswept beach. He alerted a former fur seal researcher who presumed, at first, that she knew what they'd found: a Baird's beaked whale, a large...

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How Did a Shark in a Sydney Aquarium End Up With a Human Arm?

It opened its mouth and a murder mystery came out. By Matt Soniak.

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Dolly the sheep clones age healthily

The sheep were found to be as healthy as naturally conceived animals. A study published today in Nature reviews the health of the four clones of infamous Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned animal which was born 20 years ago. Concerns were raised when Dolly died at the comparatively young age of 6.5 years old, however her clones have now all reached a robust nine years old without major health problems. The study’s lead author, Kevin Sinclair, told us more.

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Cornell Launches Archive of 150,000 Bird Calls and Animal Sounds, with Recordings Going Back to 1929

Ornithologists and bird watchers rejoice.

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Scientists might have found the origin of life on Earth

Scientists might have found the common ancestor that unites all life on Earth – and it’s called Luca. Our ultimate relative was a single-cell, bacterium-like organism known as Last Universal Common Ancestor or Luca. And it could help establish how life on Earth began, at the very start.

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A Snapshot of a 21st-Century Librarian

As the way people access information changes, librarians like Theresa Quill are exploring ways to make their jobs newly relevant.

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Massive Volcanic Eruptions Triggered Earth’s "Great Dying"

Geologists nailed down the timing of the ancient event and confirmed that it is a likely suspect in the Permian extinction

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Like a sick joke: [Michigan governor] Snyder appoints BP lobbyist to head MDEQ

It's a stunning look into the way the governor views the state's responsibility to protect Michigan's environment, and Michiganders' health. (July 15, 2016)

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EPA moves to regulate climate-warming airliner pollution

Jet engine exhaust from airliners endangers human health and adds to climate change, the government found Monday in taking the first step toward regulating those emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency said it will use its authority under the Clean Air Act to impose limits on aircraft emissions. Jet engines spew significant amounts of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, into the upper atmosphere, where they trap heat from the sun.

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Tree ring warning: Forests may not be able to save us

More than 2 million tree-ring records warn that slow growth could change forests from climate assets to carbon producers.

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Rare bog butterfly flutters back from brink

A small bog in Lancashire is once again home to a rare species of butterfly, for the first time in 100 years. By Jonathan Webb.

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Why all civilised people should love wasps

All gardeners, and all readers, have reason to thank them. By Simon Barnes.

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