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by Ursula Hyzy Agence France-Presse TARA, Japan (AFP) — The key to the survival of the world’s threatened coral reefs may lie in the waters surrounding a small volcanic island off the coast of Japan, scientists say. The seabed of Shikine island is a “living laboratory” for researchers aboard the schooner Tara, a French-led scientific expedition, who are looking for clues to help protect coral from the damaging effects of climate change. While coral reefs […]
CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — Researchers at California’s Stanford University are studying how birds morph their wings during flight in the hopes of engineering more versatile drones in the future. The scientists use a projector to beam patterns of overlapping light on the bird, a parrotlet. A camera, synced with the projector, then records its flight. Using a set of algorithms, the researchers can then create a 3D reconstruction of the bird’s movement. Already the […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Whale cams have revealed the secret feeding habits of the giant mammals in frozen Antarctica, details on their social lives, and even how they must blow hard to clear sea ice to breathe. Scientists attached tiny cameras and electronic tags to humpbacks to better understand what they do underwater as they study how shrinking sea ice caused by warming sea temperatures linked to climate change may impact them. “Once we have […]
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II opens the new Center for Elephant Care at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in Whipsnade, north of London. https://youtu.be/k7e54nMna0M
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Frozen, sub-Arctic wastelands loaded with planet-heating greenhouse gases are more susceptible to global warming than previously understood, scientists warned on Monday. Even stabilising the world’s climate at two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — the daunting goal laid down in the 196-nation Paris Agreement — would melt more than 40 percent of permafrost, or an area nearly twice the size of India, they reported in […]
CHENGDU CITY, Sichuan Province, southwest China (CCTV) — It may be an easy life for panda cubs at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China’s Sichuan Province as they tease their handlers day in and day out. One such cub, named Qiyi, did exactly that in the latest video from the base. In the video recorded last Monday, Qiyi’s handler tried hard to persuade it to return to the room after […]
Thanks to last winter’s heavy rains, California’s flower-covered hills are experiencing their greatest bloom in more than a decade. Hordes of tourists are flocking to the region, which had been marked by an historic drought for the past several years. https://youtu.be/eE8kcecTbHk
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) — Poachers have shot dead a one-horned rhinoceros at a national wildlife park in Nepal, officials said Sunday, spotlighting the threat faced by the rare animals. Officials on Saturday found the male rhino with its horn gouged out in Chitwan National Park, the country’s biggest rhino conservation area. “We performed a post-mortem and found that it had been hit by a bullet on its head,” the park’s spokesman Nurendra Aryal told AFP. Aryal said […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Coral bleached for two consecutive years at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has “zero prospect” of recovery, scientists warned Monday, as they confirmed the site has again been hit by warming sea temperatures. Researchers said last month they were detecting another round of mass bleaching this year after a severe event in 2016, and their fears were confirmed after aerial surveys of the entire 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long bio-diverse reef. Last year, the […]
by Ouerdya AIT ABDELMALEK Agence France Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Gone are the days of London’s “pea souper” smogs, but like many European cities, the British capital is once again being choked by pollution — and has road traffic firmly in its sights. In 1952, the Great Smog suffocated London for five days, bringing the city to a standstill as soot-filled clouds descended onto the streets and into people’s lungs, leaving more than […]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — A historic leatherworking quarter in Bangladesh once labelled among the most polluted places on earth was shut Thursday as police enforced a court ruling to protect a vital waterway. Conservationists have been fighting for years to close the century-old tannery district in the capital Dhaka, which pumps thousands of litres of toxic waste directly into the city’s most important river on a daily basis. The Supreme Court ordered last month that […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The world added a record 138.5 gigawatts of renewable power capacity in 2016 despite a 23 percent drop in investment, reflecting the falling cost of clean energy, the United Nations announced Thursday. The new energy — mainly from wind and solar installations, but not including large hydro projects — was up eight percent from the previous year, on global investment of $242 billion (227 billion euros). Investment in fossil fuel-based energy […]
