NEWSWORTHY
Proliferation of marine parks in China fueling shadowy trade in cetaceans
Eight beluga whales jump in unison out of a bright blue indoor pool, flipping their tail fins and spewing water as a packed audience cheers and snaps photographs. Whale shows like the one at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, located in Zhuhai on China's southern coast, are ...
'Death by a thousand cuts': Scientists fear non-pest insects are declining
A staple of summer — swarms of bugs — seems to be a thing of the past. And that makes scientists worry. Pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids and cockroaches are doing just fine. But the more beneficial flying insects of summer — native bees, ...
Australian tourist haven of Whitsundays suffers twin shark attacks
A girl was in a serious condition and a woman was fighting for her life, Australian authorities said Thursday after two separate shark attacks at an idyllic beach retreat. The girl was air-lifted to hospital after being bitten on the leg while swimming in the ...
A fire department in northern Bangkok has not been called out to put out a fire since June. But for trapping a slithery foe? There is a 24-hour hotline. "We have had several calls asking us to come and catch snakes," said Suraphong Suepchai, a ...
Fish and salad: Bonnethead sharks found to eat sea grass too
Ruining the reputation of sharks as bloodthirsty predators, California researchers said they have found a shark that enjoys a side of sea grass with its prey. Bonnethead sharks not only eat grass while chomping fish and squid — they also digest the plant and gain ...
Australia unleashes starfish-killing robot to protect Great Barrier Reef
A robot submarine able to hunt and kill the predatory crown-of-thorns starfish that are devastating the Great Barrier Reef was unveiled by Australian researchers on Friday. Scientists at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said the robot, named the RangerBot and developed with a grant from ...
Have you ever heard of macaws that blush? Researchers still don't quite understand how it works, but a French team has observed the phenomenon multiple times in a group of five captive blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna). They published their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. Blue-and-yellow ...
How did the turtle get its shell? It sounds like the start of a fable, but it is something scientists have wondered for years, and new fossil research is providing some clues. The way that turtles evolved into their modern form, with a shell fused ...
A rare rodent species known as a bamboo rat that lives around the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu in Peru has resurfaced after a decade of absence and been photographed for the first time. A specimen of the rodent Dactylomis peruanus was spotted by guards ...
A new class of pesticides, positioned to replace neonicotinoids, may be just as harmful to crop-pollinating bees, researchers cautioned Wednesday. In experiments, the ability of bumblebees to reproduce and the rate at which their colonies grow were both compromised by the new sulfoximine-based insecticides, they ...
Watermelon snow is speeding up the melting of glaciers, Japanese scientists report
The phenomenon known as watermelon snow, when snow is colored red,is caused by an algae that speeds up the melting of glaciers, according to new research.
Elephants snatched from the wild and conscripted to haul logs in Myanmar's timber industry live on average five years less than working elephants born in captivity, researchers said Tuesday. The older an elephant is at the time of capture, the more likely it is to ...
