Can Plant Blindness Be Cured?

In a new review study, researchers examine why people, including conservationists, tend to be biased against plants, and if this bias can be challenged. By Shreya Dasgupta.

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Hunting ban backed by 84% of voters, poll finds

Any attempts to repeal the Hunting Act would be "deeply unpopular" among the majority of the British public, a new poll has found. The Ipsos MORI poll commissioned by animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports found 84% of the public do not want a return to fox hunting. Opposition to hare hunting and deer hunting was even stronger, at 91% and 88% respectively.

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The human clitoris is an object of beauty, pleasure and intrigue

It seems remarkable to me that well into the twenty-first century we still have so much to learn about many parts of the human body. Organs we’re all very familiar with - ones we take for granted - still…

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Stakes Grow Higher In The Cat-Bird Wars

A new book — and an extraordinary backlash to it — has put poison, predator cats and at-risk wildlife front and center, says anthropologist Barbara J. King.

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Earth's CO2 levels just crossed a really scary threshold - and it's permanent

According to the latest figures, levels of atmospheric carbon have officially surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm), and there’s little hope of returning them to safe levels - the situation is now permanent.

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Bumblebee Set to Become Officially Endangered

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has proposed listing a species of bumblebee as an endangered species, the first bee species to be granted such federal protection in the continental United States. The rusty patched bumblebee - the workers of which can be identified by a small rust-colored mark on the middle of their second abdominal segment - was historically widespread along the east coast of North America, from Quebec down to Georgia, and across much of the midwest as far west as the Dakotas.

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14,000-year-old campsite in Argentina adds to an archaeological mystery

A glimpse of the last people on Earth to colonize a continent without humans.

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Ancient Roman coins found buried under ruins of Japanese castle

Archaeologists were left baffled by the "strange" discovery of ancient Roman coins buried in the ruins of a castle in Japan. The four copper coins were retrieved from soil beneath Katsuren Castle on Okinawa Island, and were originally thought to be a hoax before their true provenance was revealed. 

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State in the dark: South Australia's major power outage

The entire state of South Australia was without power for several hours on Wednesday afternoon, with the region gripped by what could be one of the most extreme weather systems to hit in 50 years. A mass blackout began about 3.30pm Wednesday afternoon, plunging the city into darkness, grounding flights and causing havoc on the state's roads.

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Indonesia Evacuates Hundreds of Tourists after Volcano Erupts

Indonesian rescuers on Wednesday evacuated hundreds of tourists from a volcano that erupted a day earlier and were searching for as many as 50 climbers.

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Scenes From New England’s Drought: Dry Wells, Dead Fish and Ailing Farms

The region is struggling to cope with a dry spell that climatologists say is not expected to abate before the end of the year.

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What would happen if the world suddenly went vegetarian?

Eliminating meat from our diets would bring a bounty of benefits to both our own health and the planet’s – but it could also harm millions of people. Rachel Nuwer investigates.

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Australian State Loses Power as Strong Storm Lashes Region

An entire Australian state lost power as a strong storm lashed the region Wednesday, causing traffic chaos, stranding people in elevators and prompting police to warn residents to stay inside.

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US emissions set to miss 2025 target in Paris climate change deal, research finds

Even if US implements emissions-cutting proposals it could still overshoot target by nearly 1bn tonnes of greenhouse gases, according to scientific study

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Single clothes wash may release 700,000 microplastic fibres, study finds

Each cycle of a washing machine could release more than 700,000 microscopic plastic fibres into the environment, according to a study. A team at Plymouth University in the UK spent 12 months analysing what happened when a number of synthetic materials were washed at different temperatures in domestic washing machines, using different combinations of detergents, to quantify the microfibres shed. They found that acrylic was the worst offender, releasing nearly 730,000 tiny synthetic particles per wash...

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Illustrations from a Descriptive Iconography of Cacti (1841)

Illustrations of cacti featured in a 19th-century work by French botanist Charles Lemaire.

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Proteins from 'deep time' found in ostrich eggshell

Scientists have found preserved proteins in 3.8-million-year-old ostrich eggshells from Africa. The researchers say these biological building blocks - bound into the eggshell - could provide genetic information up to 50 times older than any DNA. These proteins, the team said, had been protected because they had been "entrapped" in surface minerals.

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A Journey to Bookland

The British Library has recently acquired a most appropriate addition to its map collection: a map of ‘Bücherland’ (Bookland), designed and drawn in 1938 by the German painter and illustrator Alfons Woelfle (1884-1951). Together with his publisher, Georg Heimeran, Woelfle clearly had a wonderful time creating Bücherland, which represents the writing, printing, publishing, selling and reading of books through its witty geography.

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Typhoon Megi Landfalls in Taiwan; Over 120 MPH Winds, 30+ Inches of Rain Measured

On the heels of typhoons Meranti and Malakas, Megi has hammered Taiwan.

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Superblocks: How Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

Modern cities are designed for cars. But the city of Barcelona is testing out an urban design trick that can give cities back to pedestrians.

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Cockroaches are not radiation-proof and most are not pests

Few animals have a worse reputation than the humble cockroach, but almost everything we think we know about them is an urban myth.

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Ancient Roman coins unearthed from castle ruins in Okinawa

Coins issued in ancient Rome have been excavated from the ruins of a castle in a city in Okinawa Prefecture, the local education board said Monday, the first time such artifacts have been recovered from ruins in Japan.

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Invest 97L Likely to Become 'Matthew' Later This Week in the Caribbean Sea

A sprawling area of low pressure east of the Windward Islands will be the one to watch well into next week.

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Photos: Taste of Winter Arrives in the Rockies as Fall all Begins with Snow

Wintry weather marked the first days of autumn across parts of the Mountain West as snow mixed in with the changing fall foliage.

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Taiwan issues land, sea warnings for Typhoon Megi

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) issued the first land warning for Typhoon Megi Monday morning, following a sea warning late Sunday, as the storm approached the island. The land warning covers Yilan, Hualien and Taitung in northeastern and southeastern Taiwan, which are expected to start experiencing strong winds and heavy rain Monday, according to the CWB.

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Mysterious Ocean Blobs Aren’t So Mysterious

The internet is awash with viral videos of bizarre, floating things that “baffle scientists. Not these scientists.

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Solar power cost down 25% in five months – “There’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again”

On August 11 a bid of US$0.46/W was put forward to build 500MW of solar power in China (a roughly calculated levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) at $0.019/kWh). This past week we saw a bid of $0.023/kWh to build 1.2GW of solar power in Abu Dhabi. This price of $0.023/kWh is almost 25% lower than the $0.0299/kWh was bid in late April for a series of projects also in Abu Dhabi. These extremely aggressive price falls are partially driven by unique situations – a Chinese solar panel production glut and historically low costs of money. But also because of technology as Frank Wouters, the former director of Masdar Clean Energy...

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The forgotten 200-year-old pub discovered under a Northern Quarter building site

Untouched bottles of brandy are among the haul from the former Astley Arms - which is set to be the site of a 13-storey skyscraper

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Skeleton find could rewrite Roman history

Two skeletons have been discovered in a London graveyard which could change our view of the history of Europe and Asia. Analysis of the bones, found in a Roman burial place in Southwark, discovered that they dated to between the 2nd and 4th Century AD and were probably ethnically Chinese. Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One the find was...

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In a Parched Corner of Xinjiang, Ancient Water Tunnels Are Running Dry

The karez channels that bring water from the mountains to the farmers of Turpan are under threat, a victim of global warming, oil drillers and industrial-scale agriculture.

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Making Maps for Books: Two Cartographers Tell Us How It’s Done

How exactly does one go about making a map of a make-believe place?To find out, A.J. O'Connell contacted some publishers, and they hooked her up with their mapmakers, who explained how they work with authors, how they draw maps, and what they’ve contributed to the fictional worlds they draw.

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Dunkin' Donuts is still serving coffee in Styrofoam cups 6 years after saying it would stop

For years, Dunkin' Donuts has said it would replace its iconic plastic foam cups with cups that are more environmentally friendly. In a 2010 report, the coffee chain said it considered its use of foam to be "the most prominent sustainability issue we must deal with."

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ST&G's Marvellous Maps

 Looking for an inappropriately funny, but classy-looking, map of Great Britain, the USA or Australia? You're in the right place. From the Bottoms of Britain, to the multiple Climaxes of the USA, to the many Knobs of Australia, our maps will entertain, delight and in many cases cause uncontrollable bouts of very childish giggling.        

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Taiwan Braces for Landfall of Typhoon Megi

Typhoon Megi will continue to strengthen before threatening lives and property across Taiwan and eastern China this week.

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Cockroach Giving Birth While Being Devoured by Fire Ants

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Preventing overpopulation could curb climate change

Each day, an estimated 350,000 babies are born worldwide, outnumbering the number deaths, and adding to a growing population. And while it may not be an obvious link, this overpopulation could be increasing the pace of climate change. Dr Travis Rieder, a moral philosophy professor and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, explains why the key to stopping climate change is reducing the number of babies born each year.

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7 Animals That Aren't What We Call Them

Picking common and scientific names is a puzzle of taxonomy, and sometimes we end up naming huge frogs "Mountain Chickens". So, let's figure out this puzzle.

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Earth's atmosphere is slowly leaking oxygen, and scientists aren't sure why

Don't panic, but researchers have discovered that oxygen is (very) slowly draining out of Earth's atmosphere, and right now, they're not sure why. By analysing air bubbles trapped inside ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, a team from Princeton University has found oxygen levels have dropped by 0.7 percent in the last 800,000 years, and figuring out why could be crucial to predicting our planet's future.

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Dozens Of U.S., Canadian Tribes Unite Against Proposed Oil Pipelines

U.S. Native American tribes and Canadian First Nations are banding together to "collectively challenge and resist" proposals to build more pipelines from tar sands in Alberta, Canada. At least 50 First Nations and tribes signed a treaty on Thursday at ceremonies held in Vancouver and Montreal.

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Canadian town steams over Nestlé bid to control local spring water well

A small town in Ontario, Canada, has prompted fresh scrutiny of the bottled-water industry after its attempt secure a long-term water supply through the purchase of a well was outbid by the food and drinks multinational Nestlé. When authorities in Centre Wellington, population of about 30,000, learned that Nestlé had put a bid on a spring water well in their region, they scrambled over the summer to counter with a competing bid. The goal was to safeguard a water supply for the township’s fast-growing population...

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Texas quakes caused by injection wells, scientists determine

Texas earthquakes, one reaching magnitude 4.8, were caused by injections of wastewater in drilling for oil and gas, scientists say. Using radar from satellites, a study published in the journal Science, found that five significant East Texas quakes in 2012 and 2013 were not natural occurrences. For the first time, scientists were able to track the uplifting ground movements in the quakes. The study's co-author, Stanford University geophysicist William Ellsworth, said the technique provides a way to determine which quakes are man-made.

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Devil Frog Vomits Up a New Ant Species

Sometimes scientists make discoveries in the strangest of places. Like the belly of a poison frog.

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Australia Is Drifting So Fast GPS Can't Keep Up

Australia is not quite where you think it is. The continent has shifted by 4.9 feet since the last adjustment was made to GPS coordinates in 1994, reports the New York Times. All of the Earth’s continents float on tectonic plates, which glide slowly over a plastic-like layer of the upper mantle. And the plate that Australia sits on has been moving relatively fast, about 2.7 inches a year (northward and with a slight clockwise rotation). In contrast, the North American plate has been moving roughly one inch a year, though the Pacific plate moves three to four inches a year.

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The 2020 Olympics may have medals made from electronic waste

Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are hoping to source the gold, silver and bronze needed to make medals for the games from millions of discarded smartphones and other small consumer electronics. Japan, one of the world's most gadget-obsessed nations, has 16 percent of the world's gold and 22 percent of the planet's silver currently sitting inside its consumer electronics.

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Dry tropical forests 'overlooked and under threat'

Tropical dry forests are among the most threatened habitats on the planet, yet remain overlooked by scientists and conservationists, warn researchers.

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Great white sharks and tuna share genetics that makes them super predators

Despite evolving separately for 400 million years, some sharks and tuna share genetic traits linked to higher metabolism and quick swimming behaviour. Tuna fish and the lamnid group of sharks, which includes great white sharks, share some similar traits that help make them super predators, including their style of swimming and their ability to stay warm.

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Map Shows Every River That Flows to the Mighty Mississippi

A new look at the Mississippi’s enormous watershed reveals the true size and strength of the world’s fourth longest river.

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See Dazzling Botanical Imagery Through the Ages

"Plant: Exploring the Botanical World" is a glorious visual compendium of plants and flowers that spans thousands of years.

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How an Imaginary Island Stayed on Maps for Five Centuries

O Brazil, or Hy-Brasil as it was frequently labeled, had haunted maps since the 14th century, first as a mistake, then as a mythological tribute. Its size and shape often morphed, its location wandered from Ireland to North America, and its name varied, but for five centuries it endured in Western cartography.

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Bumble bee is proposed for U.S. endangered species status

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the rusty patched bumble bee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, for federal protection as an endangered species. One of several wild bee species seen declining over the past two decades, the rusty patched bumble bee is the first in the continental United States formally proposed for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

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