Why Kenya has banned the commercial slaughter of donkeys

What is driving the sudden rise in demand for donkey meat and skins? The global demand for donkey skins and meat is mostly driven by Chinese markets. In China donkey meat and skins are used to produce snacks, beauty products, sex stimulants, anti-ageing products and traditional medicine known as ejiao.

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Parrot 'who heard victim's last words' to give evidence in rape and murder trial

The comments of a parrot may be used in an upcoming rape and murder trial. Elizabeth Toledo, 46, was raped and then killed in the city of San Fernando, Argentina in December 2018. At the end of the month a police officer was guarding the crime scene when they heard a parrot say "Ay, no, Por favour, soltame!" ("No, please, let me go"), Clarin reports.

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Scientists Found Weed at an Ancient Altar From Biblical Times

A sanctuary called the “Holy of Holies” offers “the earliest evidence for the use of cannabis in the Ancient Near East.” Who was the Kingdom of Judah’s pot dealer?

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Migratory birds in the Eastern US are struggling to adapt to climate change

Migratory birds may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change compared with birds that stay put during the winter,scientists reported May 26 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that residential birds in North America have expanded their ranges into warming northerly areas since the 1970s, while the breeding grounds occupied by migratory birds have shrunk.

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Rethinking Easter Island’s Historic “Collapse”

Controversial new archaeological research casts doubt on a classic theory of this famous island's societal collapse.

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Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are becoming stronger, according to a new NOAA study

It is becoming increasingly evident that hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones worldwide are becoming stronger and potentially more deadly as the globe warms due to the climate crisis, according to a new study.

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Archaeologists in Norway are about to dig up a Viking ship

The Gjellestad ship is roughly 1,200 years old.

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Blue Bee Feared to Be Extinct Is Found in Florida

First discovered in 2011, the rare species reappeared recently after nearly a decade of eluding scientists' watch

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New Trump public land rules will let Alaska hunters kill bear cubs in dens

The Trump administration is finalizing rules that will allow hunters in Alaska’s national preserves to shoot bears and wolves, and their cubs and pups, while they are in their dens. The National Park Service is reversing regulations written by the Barack Obama administration, which banned some of the much-criticized practices for hunting the predators, including luring bears with food like doughnuts.

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Asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs struck Earth at 'deadliest possible angle'

'The worst-case scenario is exactly what happened,' researchers reveal

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Amazon under threat: Fires, Loggers and now Virus

How the loss of the Amazon goes beyond deforestation - and what the nine countries that share this natural resource are doing to protect it.

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UK MPs call for extra £30bn to aid green recovery from Covid-19

The UK needs to invest an additional £30bn a year in shovel-ready green projects to create jobs, energise the post-lockdown economy and put the country back on track to achieve its climate targets, a new cross-party commission recommends.

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Deer are seen around the grounds of Raby Castle, Britain.

Photo/Reuters/Lee Smith

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'Billions of years of evolutionary history' under threat

Scientists say more than 50 billion years of cumulative evolutionary history could be lost as humans push wildlife to the brink. "Weird and wonderful" animals unlike anything else on Earth are sliding silently toward extinction, they say. And regions home to the greatest amounts of unique biodiversity are facing unprecedented human pressures. They include the Caribbean, Western Ghats of India and large parts of Southeast Asia.

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Illuminating Biodiversity of the Ningaloo Canyons - ROV 4K Highlights- FK200308

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Longest green roof on a residential building in the Netherlands completed

The largest social housing complex in Rotterdam-Zuid has just taken yet another step towards climate resilience. The iconic Peperklip now has the longest natural roof amongst all residential buildings in the Netherlands, reported the municipality of Rotterdam earlier this week. The 7,600 square meters of greenery which will grow on the roof shall contribute to the biodiversity in the city and retain water during periods of heavy rainfall.

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Greta Thunberg Mocks Alberta Minister Who Said COVID-19 Is a ‘Great Time’ For Pipelines

On a recent podcast appearance, Alberta’s energy minister decided to say the quiet part loud. “Now is a great time to be building a pipeline because you can’t have protests of more than 15 people,” Sonya Savage said to the hosts of the CAODC Podcast. “Let’s get it built.” Climate activist Greta Thunberg commented on the statements on Twitter Tuesday morning, writing, “well, at least we are seeing some honesty for once... Unfortunately this (is) how large parts of the world are run.”

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The Most Anti-Nature President in U.S. History - Center for American Progress

President Donald Trump has thrown in reverse the United States’ proud, bipartisan record of nature conservation. Unlike every modern-day U.S. president before him who helped build up America’s awe-inspiring system of public lands and waters, President Trump has pursued an agenda aimed at removing protections from vast swaths of public lands and waters. In fact, President Trump is the only president in U.S. history to have removed more public lands than he protected.

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Why destroying the planet is bad for our health

Since the pandemic began, pollution levels have dropped, animals are returning to areas they had previously abandoned and more people have taken to travelling on foot and by bicycle. Although short-lived, we have already seen some of the effects changing our behaviour can have on our own lives and on the natural world.

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Long-term data show hurricanes are getting stronger

In almost every region of the world where hurricanes form, their maximum sustained winds are getting stronger. That is according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Center for Environmental Information and University of Wisconsin–Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, who analyzed nearly 40 years of hurricane satellite imagery.

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'Earliest ever photo of an animal' features in New York exhibition

The black-and-white image (above) taken by a French photographer shows the animal resting beside a cart at a cattle market in Rome and has been dated to between April and July 1842.

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Huge owl hatches chicks outside man’s window — now the brood watches TV with him

At first, a Belgian man thought the noise coming from his outdoor planter was pesky pigeons. Turns out, it was Europe’s largest owl — four of them. One of the world’s largest owls, the Eurasian eagle owl, set up camp in Jos Baart’s third-storey apartment planter. Since the mother owl’s three gigantic chicks hatched, they’ve taken to watching TV through the window with their new landlord.

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The Remarkable Power of the Prickly Pear

A stalwart of the Mexican landscape is finding a second life powering up buildings in the desert, and it is proving to be an unusually sustainable biofuel.

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Herd Of Fuzzy Green 'Glacier Mice' Baffles Scientists

Moss balls seem to roll around glaciers in a coordinated way, and researchers can't explain why the whole group moves at about the same speed and in the same direction.

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EU plans to protect 30% of land and seas by 2030 for biodiversity

At least 30% of EU land and seas will be protected by 2030 to halt the decline of plant and animal species and restore carbon sinks to address climate change, under European Commission plans. The proposed biodiversity strategy, initially due to be released late March and delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, was published on Wednesday.

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Microplastic pollution in oceans vastly underestimated – study

Particles may outnumber zooplankton, which underpin marine life and regulate climate

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Antarctica's weird green snow set to spread due to climate change, scientists predict

It's not grass growing along the Antarctic Peninsula. The culprits are a lot smaller.

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The story of cheaper batteries, from smartphones to Teslas

The economics of cheaper batteries—and why they're good news for the planet.

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Earth’s magnetic field is mysteriously weakening, causing chaos for satellites

The Earth's magnetic field is weakening between Africa and South America, causing issues for satellites and space craft. Scientists studying the phenomenon observed that an area known as the South Atlantic Anomaly has grown considerably in recent years, though the reason for it is not entirely clear.

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Bumblebees' 'clever trick' fools plants into flower

Scientists discover a new behaviour among bumblebees that tricks plants into flowering early.

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The End of Meat Is Here

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

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'We've never seen this': wildlife thrives in closed US national parks

Deer, bobcats and black bears are gathering around parts of Yosemite national park typically teeming with visitors. Earlier this month, for the first time in recent memory, pronghorn antelope ventured into the sun-scorched lowlands of Death Valley national park. Undeterred by temperatures that climbed to over 110F, the animals were observed by park staff browsing on a hillside not far from Furnace Creek visitor center.

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The planet has a problem with buildings: Here's how smart ideas, tech and design can change that

Whether it’s a creaky old house or a brand new, state of the art office block, the buildings we live and work in have a big impact on the environment. The challenge to reduce this footprint is sizable. According to a recent report from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, International Energy Agency and the UN Environment Programme, building construction and operations were, globally, responsible for 36% of final energy use in 2018.

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Young climate activists call for EU to radically reform farming sector

The EU’s farming sector needs radical reform, and the common agricultural policy (CAP) must be rewritten if the climate crisis is to be tackled, a group of young climate activists will urge. Fridays for Future, founded by teenagers in the wake of Greta Thunberg’s school strikes, will confront the European commission’s vice-president, Frans Timmermans, online to call for new plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and replace subsidies based on the amount of land farmed with payments for farmers supplying public goods, such as clean water, clean air and lower carbon emissions.

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Trump administration moves to ease rules for hunting bears and wolves on federal lands in Alaska

Two federal agencies this week took steps to increase hunting and trapping on several national preserves in Alaska and in the popular Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The moves drew alarm from conservation groups who said the new rules will support extreme measures to kill predators and their young in national preserves in Alaska. They said a proposed rule change would allow brown bear baiting in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge for the first time.

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The Mount St. Helens Eruption Was the Volcanic Warning We Needed [Paywall]

It’s been 40 years since the sideways explosion that changed volcanology forever.

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Ultra-Rare South Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher Photographed for the Very First Time

The species has eluded scientists for 130 years, and this is the first time these photos are being published for Filipinos to see.

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Sustainability? We are Blaming the Poor for the Wrongs of the Rich

Don’t be fooled by the unfounded, Malthusian belief that overpopulation is the roots of all evils when it comes to sustainability. Population growth is just one of many issues that we should keep an eye on – for sure – but it would be an unforgivable mistake – and a racist one – to give it our undivided attention.

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Remote sensing reveals Antarctic green snow algae as important terrestrial carbon sink

Snow algae bloom along the coast of Antarctica and are likely to be biogeochemically important. Here, the authors produced the first map of such blooms, show that they are driven by warmer temperatures and proximity to birds and mammals, and are likely to increase given projected climate changes.

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When Cadaver Dogs Pick Up a Scent, Archaeologists Find Where to Dig

Recent research highlights the power of the canine nose to uncover buried remains from ancient human history.

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Traffic Is Way Down Because Of Lockdown, But Air Pollution? Not So Much

Car traffic took a big dip beginning in late March, and headlines celebrated clean air around the U.S. But an NPR analysis of EPA data tells a more troubling story.

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Google says it won't build AI tools for oil and gas drillers

Google says it will no longer build custom artificial intelligence tools for speeding up oil and gas extraction, separating itself from cloud computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon. A...

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In A Post-Pandemic World, Renewable Energy Is The Only Way Forward

Changing the world’s energy map is cheap, especially if we factor in the natural disasters and the cost of treating the diseases it causes. If we simply put a price on the viability of the human species as a whole, it’s clear that pivoting to renewable energy is a no-brainer.

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Dust bowl conditions of 1930s US now more than twice as likely to reoccur

Climate breakdown means conditions that wrought devastation across Great Plains could return to region

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Americans See Climate as a Concern, Even Amid Coronavirus Crisis

Americans’ positions on climate change have remained largely unshaken by the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, according to a new national survey that showed acceptance of the reality of global warming at record highs in some categories. In the report, Climate Change in the American Mind, written by researchers at Yale University and George Mason University and scheduled to be made public on Tuesday, 73 percent of those polled said that climate change was happening, which matches the highest level of acceptance previously measured by the survey, from 2019.

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The Arctic Is Unraveling as a Massive Heat Wave Grips the Region

It wouldn’t be spring in the climate change era without a massive heat wave in the Arctic.

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Check Out These Rad Covid-19 Posters from the National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS) has been rolling out some pretty cool covid-19 prevention and response posters over the past few weeks. The beautiful, colorful and funny posters offer visitors helpful advice for navigating parks during the pandemic.

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Can Redwoods Save the World?

Not by themselves, but the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is out to show how they can help.

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With Fox News' help, Republicans are continuing to lie and fearmonger about a Green New Deal

A recent New York Times article detailed how Republicans are attacking the Green New Deal as a political response to coronavirus

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The Sun Is Asleep. Deep ‘Solar Minimum’ Feared As 2020 Sees Record-Setting 100-Day Slump

While we on Earth suffer from coronavirus, our star—the Sun—is having a lockdown all of its own. Spaceweather.com reports that already there have been 100 days in 2020 when our Sun has displayed zero sunspots. That makes 2020 the second consecutive year of a record-setting low number of sunspots— which you can see (a complete absence of) here.

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