biodiversity
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New species from Asia include noseless monkey named ‘Snubby’
There are still way more kinds of creatures out there than science knows about — we're discovering new species all the time, and it always seems like the new ones are the weirdest yet. The World Wildlife Fund just released info about their 2010 discoveries in Asia's Mekong River region, which traverses Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, […]
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Something to be thankful for: Real turkeys make a comeback
Royal Palm Turkey, one of eight varieties considered to be heritage breeds.Photo: Amy Martin PachayIn 1997, The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) took a turkey census. For about half a century, nearly every turkey farm in the U.S. had been raising a breed known as the Broad Breasted White. (This cost-efficient, big-breasted bird has a […]
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Slouching toward a bananapocalypse?
Photo: Frank KehrenFor years journalists have warned of imminent banana extinction. “Get bananas while you still can,” wrote New Scientist over five years ago. “The world’s most popular fruit … is in deep trouble,” it went on to say, adding that the banana would probably be out of supermarkets by 2013, and would soon exist […]
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This is where your plants will come from after the Ecopocalypse
Wired has posted a series of photos of seed vaults, storage units that bank tens of thousands of seeds in an attempt to preserve biodiversity against threats of extinction and climate change, and we can safely say they're the creepiest way of ensuring that species survive. This is some mad-science stuff!
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The Dead Sea may not be so dead after all
The planet is kind of amazing sometimes. Researchers have discovered plumes of fresh water at the bottom of the Dead Sea, deeper than any previous plumes that had been found. And around the plumes: life. Even though most microbes that live in salt die in fresh water and vice versa, some tough little buggers are hanging on in a space where salinity shifts constantly.
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The aliens have landed!
A peek into one cubic foot of the San Francisco Bay reveals all manner of creepy crawlies -- and offers a window into our world's astonishing biodiversity.
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Hey, we found a new dolphin species!
We all know the Earth still has more and stranger species than we've discovered, or at least it will until we clear-cut and climate-bomb them right into extinction. But you usually figure these fragile exotic lifeforms are hanging out in caves under Madagascar, or somewhere else that's tough to get to. Turns out, though, that at least some of them have been chiling near Melbourne, Australia, where researchers have discovered a new species of dolphin just basically right under their noses.
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Whales hanging out in New York
First dolphins, now whales — sea mammals in New York City are bigger than Cats! Urban nature blogger Matthew Wills caught a humpback whale frolicking off Sandy Hook, N.J., within sight of the city. (He's got some great pictures over at his blog.) Wills was dismayed by the floating trash in the bay, not to […]
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Otters are back in England
Once nearly extinct in England, otters have now returned to every county, indicating that rivers are at their healthiest in decades. Conservationists had predicted that it would be another 10 years before the otters reached this level of repopulation, so it's a real triumph for the iittle dudes. Not to mention an overwhelming stroke of good fortune for Brits, who can now watch otters play from the comfort of their homes, the lucky bastards.