ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE

Plans from DC Seek to Help Disappearing Bee Species

POLICY The Obama administration is hoping to reverse the rapidly declining populations of honeybees and monarch butterflies in the US by providing them with better nourishment. The federal plan will preserve seven million acres of habitat for bees, monarch butterflies and other insects, making the federal land more bee-friendly. The move is intended to bolster the population of pollinators that are essential to America's food crops, support research, and investigate the widespread cutback of pesticide use as part of a wide-ranging strategy.

Yale Traces the Origins of all Snakes

Researchers at Yale University recently delved into the evolutionary history of snakes, and what they discovered was an ancient creature who lived over 120 million years ago in the warm forests of the Southern Hemisphere. And most interesting of all, this creature sported tiny hindlimbs, replete with ankles and toes.

Oldest Stone Tools Discovered in Kenya, Pushing the Technology Back Some 700,000 Years

The ancient stone tool industry of our early ancestors was just pushed deeper back in time, based on recent findings near the western shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya. Tools dating to over 3 million years ago - some 700,000 years earlier than previous finds - indicate the technology arose even before the genus Homo roamed the planet.

Panda Poo Reveals a Mismatched Gut

In an ongoing attempt to boost the dwindling number of pandas on the planet (currently tallying just under 2,000), scientists have discovered what appears to be a physiological roadblock to the bear's good health: they possess the wrong type of gut.

The Forecast Calls for Chance of Spiders in Australia

Australia has always been a land of the strange and bizarre. It is home to some of the world's most unique animals, from the kangaroo, to the wombat, to the lovable Tasmanian devil. So the fact that it's raining spiders should come as no surprise.

Ancient Earthquakes along New Zealand’s Coast Give Rise to New Concerns

About 80 km off the east coast of New Zealand lies the Hikurangi Trench, a subduction zone that plunges 3,000 meters beneath the surface and forms the margin between the vast Pacific Plate and its smaller western neighbor, the Australian Plate. The earthquake potential for this region is well known, but new research indicates the massive quakes that have occurred in the past may occur with greater frequency than once believed, which is bad news for New Zealand. According to the latest findings, they are long overdue.

Port of Los Angeles Reveals a New Resident of the City—A Roly Poly Pillbug Species

On the mother of all class field trips, a new species of marine roly poly pillbug was discovered, Los Angeles researchers from the county Natural History Museum confirm. The discovery was made as an invertebrate zoology lab course from Loyola Marymount University taught by researcher Dean Pentcheff of the museum explored a small, dirty, rocky beach at the southernmost tip of the city-less than a mile from the busiest port in America.

Ocean Microbes and How They Affect Our Atmosphere in the Age of Climate Change

That restorative sea breeze you enjoy on your vacation is more complex than most of us realize. Now, researchers from the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE) have demonstrated that microbes in seawater influence our climate, shaping the ways that sunlight enters the ocean as clouds form. The study recently presented to the American Chemical Society shows that it is the microbes in the seawater that control the way sea spray enters into the atmosphere, and everything that follows that.

A Special Mother’s Day Gift: A Baby Beluga

Mother's Day took on a whole new meaning for the folks at the Georgia Aquarium following the triumphant birth of a beluga whale - the first to be born to parents bred in captivity. And mother and baby are doing just fine.

Record-Setting Drought Forces California Salmon to Take to the Highway

California's record-setting drought has dried up large swaths of the San Joaquin River; bad news for the state's salmon. So in a desperate effort to save a generation of hatchlings, tanker trucks are being employed to transport the young fish downstream. With their normal passage blocked, the fish are now migrating via Highway 99.

Finding the Origins of Chinook Salmons Through the ‘Otolith’ of the Inner Ear

Over the course of many years researchers have sought out to find exactly where Alaska’s Chinook salmon are hatched. The process is known, the migratory patterns are mapped, yet for any given fish caught in the wide open ocean, the story of its origins are often shrouded in mystery—but now that has changed. With a simple chemical marker, accumulating in the inner ear bone of the salmon known as an “otolith”, researchers now believe that they can trace the origins of any Chinook salmon back to the exact waters from which they came before they emerged in Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

Seismic Changes on Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano Prompt Warnings And New Research

After a stunning increase in seismic activity an an apparent drop in the lava lake at the summit of Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano within the national park, researchers and seismologists in Hawaii are concerned that pressure in the volcano is continuing to change—and are sounding what appears to be an indefinite alarm until more can be determined. In the last two days alone, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have identified small earthquakes at the highest rate to date, setting a new record at one earthquake every couple of minutes. And with the seismic changes, researchers with the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory are hoping that a few changes can help save lives in the event that an eruption could occur.

How the Opah Managed To Hide Its Warm Blood In Ocean Depths

This week scientists discovered the first known warm-blooded fish; except that this fish was already well-known to humans. The comically appointed opah, a large silver and red fish that is large, circular, and flat, has been making appearances in fishing nets off the coast of west Africa and Hawaii for years.

Zoos Raise Awareness of Endangered Species by Making their Animals Disappear

May 15th marked the 10th anniversary of Endangered Species Day, which kicked off awareness events across the country. More than 200 zoos participated by restricting access to some of their endangered species, with the aim of giving visitors a glimpse of a world where such animals no longer existence.
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