Three adult caribou watch over three calves in the mountains of British Columbia. Credit: Line Giguere/Wildlife Infometrics Thanks to drastic and evidence-based solutions, more southern mountain caribou roam Western Canada today than in previous decades; however, herd numbers are too fragile to sustain themselves without continued intervention. That begins the conclusion of a new research … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain While foraging, animals including humans and monkeys are continuously making decisions about where to search for food and when to move among possible sources of sustenance. “Foraging behavior is something we perform daily when we go to the grocery store to pick up food, and we make choices based on the … Read more
Diademed sifaka. Credit: Onja Ramilijaona What can be done when one threatened animal kills another? Scientists studying critically endangered lemurs in Madagascar confronted this difficult reality when they witnessed attacks on lemurs by another vulnerable species, a carnivore called a fosa. This dynamic can be particularly complex when the predation occurs in an isolated or … Read more
Arabica coffee beans harvested the previous year are stored at a coffee plantation in Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala, on May 22, 2014. In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics on Monday, April 15, 2024, researchers estimate that Coffea arabica came to be from natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species over 600,000 years ago. … Read more
Credit: NOAA Headquarters The world is currently experiencing a global coral bleaching event, according to NOAA scientists. This is the fourth global event on record and the second in the last 10 years. Bleaching-level heat stress, as remotely monitored and predicted by NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch (CRW), has been—and continues to be—extensive across the Atlantic, … Read more
This image provided by researchers in April 2024 shows views of some of the vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a newly discovered extinct snake from about 47 million years ago, estimated to reach nearly 50 feet (15 meters) long. The scale bar at the center of each row showing rotated views of an individual vertebra indicates … Read more
Poor countries the smallest emitters but the most vulnerable to climate change. Climate change caused by CO2 emissions already in the atmosphere will shrink global GDP in 2050 by about $38 trillion, or almost a fifth, no matter how aggressively humanity cuts carbon pollution, researchers said Wednesday. But slashing greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Huge pink flocks of millions of flamingos—flamboyances of flamingos—are one of nature’s great spectacles. But colleagues and I have uncovered worrying trends in the salty and highly-alkaline “soda lakes” of east Africa where most of these birds live. Lesser flamingos are the most numerous of the six species of flamingo found … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain It’s true that our 16th-century ancestors drank much more than Irish people do today. But why they did so and what their beer was like are questions shrouded in myth. The authors were part of a team who set out to find some answers. As part of a major study of … Read more
A stellar black hole has been identified in the Milky Way. Astronomers identified the largest stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way, with a mass 33 times that of the Sun, according to a study published on Tuesday. The black hole, named Gaia BH3, was discovered “by chance” from data collected by the … Read more
