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Citizen surveys have revealed that common toads often climb trees to hide in hollows or in nest boxes Life 11 March 2022 By Michael Le Page The European common toad (Bufo bufo) Henry Andrews The common toad is a rather rotund animal with short legs and an ungainly gait. It certainly doesn’t look like a … Read more
More than three-quarters of the world’s largest rainforest has become less resilient to drought since the early 2000s, with areas near humans and with lower rainfall being the worst hit Environment 7 March 2022 By Adam Vaughan An area deforested for gold mining, along the Interoceanic highway linking Peru and Brazil in the Amazon region … Read more
Planting trillions of trees won’t replace the 10 million hectares of forest ecosystems lost each year, but documenting them could prevent further losses Environment | Comment 2 March 2022 By Jingjing Liang Michelle D’urbano SINCE the 13th century, forests have been managed as sources of trees that can be processed into timber. More recently, with … Read more
Species can actually go extinct more than once. In a biological sense, species become extinct when the last animal of a species stops breathing. But they can also become extinct a second time, researchers say. When a species disappears from our collective memory and cultural knowledge, it becomes extinct in a different way. That second … Read more
A robot with appendages that mimic the swimming legs of krill could one day be used to study these key marine food sources or explore hard-to-reach places Technology 15 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins The RoboKrill robot has appendages (right) that move like krill’s swimming legs through water Santos et al. A robotic leg moving … Read more
As we battle against our own pandemic, sea stars are being killed in the millions by a horrible condition that melts them into a sickly goo. Sadly, there’s no straightforward way to help these animals, such as protecting them with a vaccine, so conservation biologists have been desperately trying to find another way. In … Read more
Do you love spending time in nature? Or are you a city slicker, happier in the concrete jungle than the great outdoors? Back in 1986, the US biologist EO Wilson proposed that humans have an innate connection with the natural world, an idea known as biophilia. Almost every aspect of our lives depends on … Read more
A new global estimate of tree diversity suggests there are thousands of undiscovered species, but many will be rare and vulnerable to extinction Environment 31 January 2022 By Adam Vaughan Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador, South America robertharding / Alamy Earth is home to many more types of tree than previously thought, according to researchers who … Read more
An AI designed to detect bed sores in digital images has been used to identify wounded animals in camera trap footage, and can also detect poachers Life 25 January 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Sifting through footage to identify wounded animals is made easier by AI ConservationAI AI is being used to identify animals, plot their … Read more
Last month, at a conservation center near Fort Collins, Colorado, staffers held an unusual birthday party, complete with a two-tiered cake made of prairie dog and mouse carcasses, minced meat, and kibble. The recipient of the macabre cake was a small, weasellike animal named Elizabeth Ann. She is the world’s first cloned black-footed ferret, one … Read more