Environment

US researchers fuse technology with living dragonflies

VIRGINIA, United States (Reuters) — Technology company Draper has revealed the latest steps toward fusing technology with animals, releasing a behind-the-scenes look at its DragonflEye project which aims to influence the behavior of dragonflies. Researchers from Draper and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Janelia Research Campus have been developing a technology based on optrodes which would enable them to control the flight path of dragonflies. The optrodes, sometimes known as optical fibers, can […]

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African penguins threatened by climate change and over-fishing

PENRYN, United Kingdom (Reuters) – The African penguin joins the list of species said to be threatened by climate change – and overfishing. Researchers from the United Kingdom and South Africa say penguin numbers in the Benguela upwelling ecosystem have halved in just 30 years. The sardines and anchovies they feed on have moved eastwards, due to changes in water temperature and salinity. Scientists tagged juvenile penguins and found them traveling fruitlessly to their old […]

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Sri Lanka navy personnel and residents return 20 beached whales to the sea

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) — Sri Lanka Navy personnel and local residents helped around 20 beached whales back out to sea on Wednesday (May 31), a day after Cyclone Mora passed over the Indian Ocean island nation. The whales, which beached themselves repeatedly near the village of Sampur in the district of Trincomalee on the country’s northeastern coast, were pushed back into deeper waters by sailors from the nearby naval base and villagers. Large pods […]

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Baby hippo makes her debut at Cincinnati Zoo

CINCINNATI, United States (Reuters) — Fiona, a 270-pound (122.5 kilograms) hippopotamus, made her debut at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio on Wednesday (May 31). But Fiona wasn’t always this heavy. NBC reports that five months ago, she only weighed 29 pounds after being born six weeks prematurely. She made her first public appearance to journalists on Wednesday – and Fiona did not disappoint. But she’s not yet ready to appear in front of the general […]

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Faceless fish among weird deep-sea Australian finds

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Faceless fish and other weird and wonderful creatures, many of them new species, have been hauled up from the deep waters off Australia during a scientific voyage studying parts of the ocean never explored before. The month-long journey off the country’s eastern seaboard has been surveying life lurking in a dark and cold abyss that plunges four kilometers (2.5 miles) below the surface, using nets, sonar and deep-sea cameras. Chief scientist […]

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‘See-through’ ladybird shell reveals wing-folding mechanism

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — Scientists in Tokyo have replaced a ladybird beetle’s outer wing casing with an artificial see-through one, to better observe its complex folding mechanism. Assistant Professor Kazuya Saito, the lead researcher, said he was impressed with the speed with which the ladybird beetle or the ladybird can both deploy its wings for flight and store them when landing and walking. “The amazing thing about an insect’s wing is that it isn’t just […]

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Cities may be 8 degrees Celsius hotter by 2100: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — Under a dual onslaught of global warming and localized urban heating, some of the world’s cities may be as much as eight degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer by 2100, researchers warned Monday. Such a temperature spike can have dire consequences for the health of city-dwellers, robbing companies and industries of able workers, and putting pressure on already strained natural resources such as water. The projection is based on the worst-case-scenario […]

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Electric shocks ‘improve’ dried herbs taste

LUND, Sweden (Reuters) — Giving brief electric shocks to fresh herbs before drying them could vastly improve the taste of dried herbs. So say food technologists and biologists at Sweden’s Lund University. Food technology researcher Federico Gomez has conducted experiments with basil leaves and found leaves dried after short electric shocks tasted and smelled almost as good as fresh. Basil leaf pores are naturally closed once they go through the drying process, but Gomez posited […]

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Australian zoo welcomes first baby Asian elephant in seven years

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) — Sydney’s Taronga Zoo welcomed the arrival of an Asian elephant calf on Friday (May 26), the first to be born there in nearly seven years, according to a statement. The unnamed male calf weighed in at 130 kilograms and was standing within five minutes of the birth, zoo staff confirmed. The zoo said that the latest arrival will be a second for mother Pak Boon, who delivered a female calf named […]

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Research shows remote island has world’s highest density of plastic trash

HENDERSON ISLAND, United Kingdom (Reuters) — One of the world’s remotest islands has been polluted with the highest density of plastic garbage, scientific research finding shows. Although located more than 5,000 kilometres (3,106 miles) from the nearest major population centre, the uninhabited Henderson Island has an estimated 37.7 million pieces of plastic, according the to the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania. Dr. Jennifer Lavers, IMAS researcher and lead […]

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Swiss vote for gradual nuclear phaseout, energy makeover

by Nina LARSON GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The Swiss voted Sunday in favor of a massive overhaul of the country’s energy system by gradually replacing the power from its ageing nuclear reactors with renewable sources. A full 58.2 percent of Swiss voters supported the shift, according to a final tally after Sunday’s referendum, with only four of the country’s 26 cantons voting “no”. The move has been in the making since shortly after Japan’s Fukushima […]

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Antarctica is greening due to global warming

    MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Plant life is growing on Antarctica like never before in modern times, fueled by global warming which is melting ice and transforming the landscape from white to green, researchers said Thursday. Scientists studying moss in an area spanning 400 miles (640 kilometers) have found a sharp increase in growth over the past 50 years, said the report in the journal Current Biology. Plant life exists on only about […]

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