NEWSWORTHY
Global warming edging toward dangerous 'tipping point' as it weakens key ocean circulation: study
Global warming is likely slowing the main Atlantic Ocean circulation, which has plunged to its weakest level on record, according to a new study. The slowdown in the circulation — a crucial part of Earth's climate — had been predicted by computer models, but researchers ...
Police are investigating reports of "zombie-like" raccoons in northeast Ohio. Local television channel WKBN-TV reports that Youngstown police have received more than a dozen calls in the past three weeks about raccoons acting strangely in the daytime. Photographer Robert Coggeshall said he was playing with his ...
Fossils of 'badass' Argentine meat-eating dinosaur unearthed
On a semiarid Patagonian landscape 85 million years ago, a formidable meat-eater called Tratayenia rosalesi reigned as the apex predator, part of an enigmatic dinosaur group that menaced South America and Australia for tens of millions of years. Scientists on Wednesday described Tratayenia, a two-legged ...
U.N. reports forecast a lonelier planet with fewer plants and animals
Earth is losing plants, animals and clean water at a dramatic rate, according to four new United Nations scientific reports that provide the most comprehensive and localized look at the state of biodiversity. Scientists meeting in Colombia issued four regional reports Friday on how well ...
Volunteers in western Australia have managed to rescue only five of 150 short-finned pilot whales that became stranded on a beach. The surviving whales, up to 5½ meters (16.4 feet) long, have been moved to deeper waters, but Parks and Wildlife Service Incident Controller Jeremy ...
More than 150 whales have become stranded in Hamelin Bay in western Australia, and only 15 of them were still alive on Friday, authorities said. The mammals are believed to be short-finned pilot whales. The stranded animals were first spotted by a commercial fisherman early on ...
From cutting-edge DNA bar coding to smartphone apps that can identify illegal wildlife sales, conservationists are turning to high-tech tools in their battle against Indonesia's animal traffickers. Spread across more than 17,000 islands, the nation's dense tropical rainforests boast some of the highest levels of ...
Cold-blooded? Study finds female pythons care for their young
Shedding their cold-blooded image, snakes emerge from a recent study as more caring creatures that protect their nests and remain with their young for a brief period after hatching. The study of the nesting behavior of the southern African python, published this month in the ...
Estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan's national parks hit record 6 million in 2017
The estimated number of foreign visitors to the nation's national parks increased to a new record of 6 million last year, with a park in Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by natural disasters in 2016, having enjoyed a boost, the Environment Ministry has announced. The ...
China's Sichuan provincial government has secured 10 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) in funding over the next five years for a planned Giant Panda National Park, three times the size of the U.S. Yellowstone National Park, China Daily reported Thursday. The park will protect wild pandas ...
New DNA analysis shows that all the world's wild horses are already extinct
All the world's wild horses have gone extinct, according to a study that unexpectedly rewrites the horse family tree based on a new DNA analysis of their ancestry. What most people thought were the last remaining wild horses on Earth — known as Przewalski's horses ...
Coral reefs at risk of dissolving as oceans get more acidic: study
Coral reefs could start to dissolve before 2100 as man-made climate change drives acidification of the oceans, scientists said Thursday. Acidification will threaten sediments that are building blocks for reefs. Corals already face risks from ocean temperatures, pollution and overfishing. "Coral reefs will transition to net ...
