World’s first test tube lions are thriving and raising hopes more big cats could be saved from extinction

The world’s first test tube lions are thriving a month after they were born, raising hopes the process could be used to save endangered big cats from extinction. The two cubs, named Viktor and Isabel, arrived following the artificial insemination of their mother by scientists at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Experts say the pioneering IVF – in which a male’s sperm was placed into the female egg – could now be used to breed species of tiger, lynx and snow leopard, whose numbers are all falling.

Continue to article...

‘Mosquito-pocalypse is in full effect’: North Carolina hit by blood-sucking pest outbreak

Cassie Vadovsky returned home after picking up her 4-year-old daughter from school Tuesday evening and was greeted by a swarm of blood-thirsty mosquitos. Not just any mosquitos. Aggressive, monstrous pests with stripes on their legs. “It was like a flurry — like it was snowing mosquitos,” the stay-at-home mother of two said. “I think my car agitated them. I waited for them to calm down before I grabbed the kids and the ran into the house.”

Continue to article...

Manta rays’ food-capturing mechanism may hold key to better filtration systems

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Manta rays strain their tiny food from mouthfuls of seawater in a novel way that could hold the key to better filtration in a variety of commercial applications, new research by Oregon State University shows. Published today in Science Advances, the findings explain that manta rays filter zooplankton, mesoplankton and microcrustaceans with an apparatus different from anything previously seen in any biological or industrial system.

Continue to article...

Neanderthals Hand Structures

According to the study, the hands of the Neanderthals, in contrast to the predicted, were too curvy to hold objects between the thumb and the other fingers. The Neanderthals could hold objects between the thumb and the other fingers, just as we would hold our pencil, because their hands were much more curved than they thought. The finding helps explain the activities that require a large number of skills, such as the Neandertals, tool making, painting cave walls, drawing patterns on the bird’s bones, and twine.

Continue to article...

Lasers Reveal 60,000 Ancient Maya Structures in Guatemala

The largest-ever survey of a region from the Maya civilization has located over 60,000 previously unknown structures in northern Guatemala. The survey, conducted with the help of lasers, challenges long-held assumptions that this area was poorly connected and sparsely populated. The structures researchers identified include farms, houses and defensive fortifications, as well as 60 miles of causeways, roads and canals connecting large cities across the civilization’s central lowlands.

Continue to article...

Nepal's Tiger Population Nearly Doubles in Last Decade

Scientists estimate there are now 235 wild bengal tigers in Nepal, a huge leap from 2009, when there were only about 120 of the endangered animals. In just the last four years, the population jumped nearly 20 percent, up from 198 of the animals, according to analysis performed by Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, along with conservation groups including Panthera and the Zoological Society of London.

Continue to article...

Watching a Friend Get Eaten Could Help Animals Learn to Stay Alive

“Predator boot camps” in Australia are teaching a group of native animals some hard lessons in coexistence

Continue to article...

Wild animals endure illness, injury, and starvation. We should help.

Cecil the lion captured the world’s attention earlier this year when an American dentist hunted and killed him. People were justifiably outraged at this tragedy — so much so, in fact, that they turned against the entire practice of trophy hunting. Numerous airlines responded by banning the transport of a range of hunting trophies on their flights. In October, people were again infuriated when a German hunter shot a 40- to 60-year-old elephant in Zimbabwe.

Continue to article...

runt römer pigeons

The Runt pigeon, although of Italian origin, has become a full-size French pigeon - runt pigeons - römer tauben - runt pigeons size

Continue to article...

California Just Officially Banned The Sale Of Animal-Tested Cosmetics

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a landmark bill into law on Friday aimed at banning the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals. The California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act, authored by Democratic state Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, prohibits manufacturers to “import for profit, sell, or offer for sale” any cosmetic product that was developed or made using an animal test, if the test occurs after the law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

Continue to article...

Cats Are Surprisingly Bad at Killing Rats

Over a 79-day period, feral felines killed just two rats, instead opting to hunt less challenging prey

Continue to article...

How to Return a Lost Dog?

A helpful guide on finding a lost dog in different situations and places. All dog owners need to check this out and bookmark this article.

Continue to article...

Orca 'apocalypse': half of killer whales doomed to die from pollution

At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study. Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They become concentrated up the food chain; as a result, killer whales, the top predators, are the most contaminated animals on the planet.

Continue to article...

Trump officials ease offshore drilling safety rule

The Trump administration moved Thursday to ease provisions of a key offshore drilling safety rule, saying some of the Obama-era standards were unnecessarily burdensome on oil and natural gas companies.

Continue to article...

Thirty-seven new spider species discovered in Queensland

Dozens of new creepy crawlies have been discovered on Queensland's Cooloola Coast in the space of one weekend, and scientists believe there are many more out there waiting to be found. The thought of 37 new spider species might send shivers down most people's spines, but for spider expert Robert Whyte, it is exciting.

Continue to article...

After century of removing appendixes, docs find antibiotics can be enough

After more than a century of slicing tiny, inflamed organs from people’s guts, doctors have found that surgery may not be necessary after all—a simple course of antibiotics can be just as effective at treating appendicitis as going under the knife. The revelation comes from a large, randomized trial out of Finland, published Tuesday, September 25, in JAMA.

Continue to article...

Cheaper Battery Is Unveiled as a Step to a Carbon-Free Grid

The entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong says his company’s tests of zinc-based storage for solar and wind energy show the potential for large-scale use.

Continue to article...

Power outages during a hurricane can be deadly. Solar could fix that.

Within two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Richard Birt, a Las Vegas fire captain, flew to San Juan on what would be the first of many missions to try to get the island’s 96 fire stations up and running—not by fixing the problematical grid but by using solar power. With the encouragement of San Juan fire chief Alberto Cruz Albarrán, logistical help from San Juan firefighters, and donated equipment from the company Sunrun, within a day-and-a-half a team outfitted the flat roofs of the fire department in Barrio Obrero—one of the poorer neighborhoods in San Juan—with solar panels.

Continue to article...

Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas

Citizens and scientists on the Orkney Islands are racing to protect thousands of ancient structures threatened by climate change.

Continue to article...

Wizards, Moomins and pirates: the magic and mystery of literary maps

From Moominland to the Marauder’s Map, writers Robert Macfarlane, Frances Hardinge and Harry Potter cartographer Miraphora Mina unfold their favourite maps

Continue to article...

Republicans are slowly warming to climate change—Is it already too late?

As Hurricane Florence took hold of the Carolinas in mid-September, partisan talk swirled like the winds. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blamed the Trump administration for listening to “naysayers” who didn't want to switch to clean energy. Fossil fuels, she told reporters, absolutely contributed to the severity of the hurricane: “This is something that we have to look at in a big way, and it’s not served by denial of the facts.”

Continue to article...

Striking Satellite Images of Cities on the Brink

A fresh perspective on the fragility and resilience of our world.

Continue to article...

UK to call for third of world's oceans to be protected by 2030

Britain is to call for a third of the world's oceans to be protected from damaging activity by 2030. The ambitious target, announced at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, would ensure the marine environment has a "buffer" against the effects of climate change, plastic pollution and human exploitation. It's a significant victory for Sky Ocean Rescue which has campaigned for tighter marine protection.

Continue to article...

Mosquitoes Genetically Modified To Crash Species That Spreads Malaria

Scientists demonstrate that a "gene drive" can rapidly spread a genetic mutation through a species, perhaps providing a potent new weapon against malaria. But there are plenty of skeptics.

Continue to article...

Monsanto's global weedkiller harms honeybees, research finds

Glyphosate – the most used pesticide ever – damages the good bacteria in honeybee guts, making them more prone to deadly infections

Continue to article...

A book of poison or medieval cures?

While calling it an assassin's cabinet may be a bit exaggerated, the dramatically titled curio is a hollowed out book from the 16th century. In the pages' place are eleven drawers of varying sizes with meticulous labels, each spelling out which plant each drawer contained.

Continue to article...

North Carolina’s Famous Wild Horses Emerge from Hurricane Florence Unscathed

We’re thrilled to report that the herds of wild horses that roam North Carolina’s Outer Banks have emerged from Hurricane Florence unscathed. Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Corolla Wild Horse Fund both confirmed on social media over the weekend that their equine populations are safe and sound following Hurricane Florence’s lashing last week. Corolla Wild Horse Fund herd manager Meg Puckett told The News & Observer that the wild herd found higher ground and grouped together against the wind and rain. People on the island also kept an eye on them.

Continue to article...

Indonesian president signs 3-year freeze on new oil palm licenses

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has signed a moratorium on new licenses for oil palm plantations. The presidential instruction, signed on Sept. 19, will remain in place for no more than three years, according to the policy document, seen by Mongabay. Environmentalists previously called on Jokowi to impose no limit on the duration of the moratorium, arguing it should remain in place until it achieves its goals.

Continue to article...

Swiss vote on 'fair food' laws

Switzerland is going to the polls on Sunday, in not one but two votes which campaigners say will promote ethical and sustainable food. The votes follow scandals in the last few years over horse meat in lasagne and the destruction of rain forests to make way for palm oil and cattle ranching. And they reflect growing consumer interest - not just in Switzerland but across Europe - in where food comes from and how it is produced.

Continue to article...

Murdered man's body found after tree 'unusual for the area' grew from seed in his stomach

Ahmet Hergune was killed during the conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in 1974

Continue to article...

Saving pets without a permit: Good Samaritan arrested after helping animals survive Florence

As Hurricane Florence barreled toward the Carolina coast, Tammie Hedges took action to protect pets that might have otherwise been caught in the storm – a decision that led to her arrest. Hedges, a resident of Waynes County, North Carolina, was taken into custody Friday after providing care to more than two dozen animals – 17 cats and 10 dogs – for owners who had to evacuate before the storm hit. "The owners got to evacuate. They got to save themselves. But who’s going to save those animals? That’s what we did," Hedges said. "We saved them."

Continue to article...

Drone photos of glacier collapse show impact of climate change

When Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson headed to Greenland in June, he traveled with a heavy, oversized rolling bag containing a crucial piece of equipment to document climate change. Jackson, one of a handful of Reuters photographers licensed to operate a drone, spent seven rainy days camped alongside Greenland's Helheim glacier, near the small seaside village of Tasiilaq. Using an Inspire 1 Pro drone, Jackson captured more than 700 gigabytes of footage and images in Greenland.

Continue to article...

Group of 58,000 Science Teachers Issues No-Bullshit Position on Climate Change

Fossil fuel interest groups will continue debating the reality of human-caused climate change until the seas swallow us all, but among scientists the matter is settled. Last week, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) put out a position statement affirming as much and telling the naysayers to piss off.

Continue to article...

Divers are attempting to regrow Great Barrier Reef with electricity

A trial is underway to restore damaged coral on the Great Barrier Reef using electricity. The reef has been severely assaulted in recent years by cyclones and back-to-back heatwaves. Nathan Cook at conservation group Reef Ecologic and his colleagues are attempting to regrow surviving coral fragments on steel frames. The frames are placed on damaged parts of the reef and stimulated with electricity to accelerate the coral’s growth (see video).

Continue to article...

Books Where the Dog Dies, Rewritten So the Dog Doesn't Die

Finally, it's safe to read "Where the Red Fern Grows"

Continue to article...

Glacial engineering could limit sea-level rise, if we get our emissions under control

Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere. While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse. But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects.

Continue to article...

This Eerie Creature Was Just Officially Confirmed as The World's Earliest Known Animal

The evidence is in. A mysterious creature that lived on Earth over half a billion years ago has now been proven an animal. A fossil from 558 million years ago was so well preserved, it still had fat molecules.

Continue to article...

Spiders Have Exploded Over This Greek Town, Coating Everything in a 1,000-Foot Web

If you aren't fond of spiders, this scene will sound like a nightmare. A 300-metre-long (1,000-foot) field of spiderweb has sprung up in western Greece in the town of Aitoliko.

Continue to article...

Norway's Newest Ships Give a Glimpse Into the Future of Sustainable Seafaring

The country is using oil and gas riches to engineer emission-free vessels

Continue to article...

87 days of smog: Southern California just saw its longest streak of bad air in decades

Southern California went 87 days without a clean air day, the longest stretch of consecutive ozone pollution violations in at least 20 years. Regulators blame the persistence in pollution on hot, stagnant weather and are studying whether climate change is driving it.

Continue to article...

How the octopus got its smarts

Did the octopus evolve its unique intelligence by playing fast and free with the genetic code? Elizabeth Finkel investigates.

Continue to article...

Scientists thought they had created the perfect tree. But it became a nightmare

A pear seedling selection named Bradford was cloned by the gazillion to become the ubiquitous street tree of America’s postwar suburban expansion. Then it turned invasive. By Adrian Higgins.

Continue to article...

The Dirty Secret of the Global Plan to Avert Climate Disaster

The Paris agreement on climate change charts a narrow path to avoiding a global apocalypse. Just one problem: Its centerpiece is a technology that basically doesn’t yet exist. By Abby Rabinowitz, Amanda Simson.

Continue to article...

New species of blind eel that burrows through the soil discovered

Considered by many to be the least fish-like of fishes, swamp eels are a real oddity and rarely documented. Now Museum scientists have described an entirely new species. The fish was discovered not in water but in damp soil. Museum researcher Dr Rachunliu G Kamei uncovered it while searching the rainforest for an entirely different group of animal, the legless amphibians called caecilians.

Continue to article...

Don't kill wasps they're just as important as bees

Wasps are being wiped out as quickly as bees - and their disappearance will be just as disastrous, according to new research. But the plight of wasps is going under the radar compared to that of their close cousins - because of their unpopularity. Nature's unloved insects are best known for ruining picnics - and leaving a painful sting when we try to swat them away.

Continue to article...

The rarest fabric on Earth

The once-endangered vicuna is thriving in the Peruvian Andes, thanks to a bold plan to sustainably gather and sell its valuable fleece – and give locals a stake in its survival.

Continue to article...

Isolated Nomads Are Under Siege in the Amazon Jungle

Protected forests in Brazil and Peru hold some of the world’s last remote indigenous groups, increasingly threatened by resource-hungry outsiders.

Continue to article...

'For me, this is paradise': life in the Spanish city that banned cars

In Pontevedra, the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city has been replaced by the tweeting of birds and the chatter of humans

Continue to article...

A Nursery Rhyme Plagued a Woman For Months, And The Explanation Is Fantastic

When darkness fell, the child began to sing. Almost every evening, the shrill voice – somewhere distant and alone – would endlessly call out the same haunting nursery rhyme in the dead of night.

Continue to article...

Pollution Is So Bad That Earth Is Now In The 'Plastic Age'

Humans looking back on this period of history in future will be astonished by the huge amount of plastic this generation left behind – because rubbish waste is now so prolific it will become fossilised, a scientist has said. Dr Dan Parsons, professor of sedimentology at Hull University, says that it is inevitable there will be a record of the thousands of tonnes of plastic waste we generate as microplastics are already seeping into the earth and into the food chain.

Continue to article...