Animals
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Please enjoy this mariachi band performing for a beluga whale
One step up from "save the whales" on the environmentalism ladder is "do nice things for whales, they've had a hard time." You know, fruit baskets, flipper rubs, playing music outside their tanks because they don't have Spotify. This beluga is LOVING. IT. He's like "Christ, finally, after 30 years of people singing me that […]
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Watch a whale jump for joy after being freed from a net
It's worth watching a guy scramble around in a Speedo to see this boatload of conservationists save a humpback whale caught in a net. If you don't want to sit through tense Speedo-clad net-cutting, though, you can skip ahead to about 6:30 and watch the newly freed whale repeatedly leaping into the air in what […]
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Monkeys go on looting spree in Rio
This video is in Portuguese, so just mute it and cue up a bit of old Ludwig Van as you watch sneaky monkey thugs infiltrate a Brazilian home. With humans perpetually up in their business, monkeys in Rio de Janeiro are fighting back by turning to a life of crime.
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Think you're so smart, humans? Even fish can use tools
Tool use: It's not just for humans anymore. Actually, it hasn't been just for humans for a long while -- yet another form of homo sapiens exceptionalism we're having to learn to do without. But now it's not just for humans, apes, monkeys, certain birds, and possibly octopuses: There's documented evidence that fish can use tools too. Take that, practically everything except fish! You're not so smart after all.
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Horde of jellyfish shuts down nuclear plant
In keeping with the recent trend of wildlife disrupting human activity through sheer numbers, a bunch of jellyfish just shut down a nuclear power station in Scotland. The plant manually shut down operations yesterday because of a "high volume" of jellyfish on its seawater filter screens. (As far as we know, the jellyfish were not […]
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Germany Sets the Bar for a Green Energy Future
Today is a historic day in Germany and for green energy world wide. The German Parliament has made a precedent setting move – not only have they set a plan to phase out all nuclear by 2022, but the Parliament has committed to renewable energy like wind and solar as the replacement. The decision will […]
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Turtle sex disrupts air travel
Some flights out of JFK International Airport were delayed today as officials scrambled to clear runways of turtles. Apparently the diamondback terrapins, which live in nearby Jamaica Bay, were all "oh yeah, buiding a runway next to our habitat? That's how you're gonna play it? Fine, WE F*CK ON YOUR RUNWAY. DEAL WITH IT." Still, if there's a cuter reason to get stuck in the airport than turtles putting baby turtles inside other turtles, we don't know about it.
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'Natural' gas fails the sniff test
Top decisionmakers in Washington seem to have forgotten that “natural” gas is a fossil fuel, with some of the same damning negatives as coal and oil. For instance, unlike renewables, “natural” gas is an energy source we will exhaust — possibly sooner than previously thought. Let’s not forget that the recent rise of hydraulic fracturing […]
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Over 1,000 new species discovered in New Guinea
Researchers found more than 1,000 new species in New Guinea over the ten years from 1998 to 2008, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund. Previously unknown species -- including an 8-foot river shark, a frog with fangs, and pink dolphin -- were discovered at a rate of two a week. But New Guinea could lose half its forest to logging by 2020, and already some of these new species are so rare that they went onto the endangered list as soon as they were discovered.
