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The current leading theory that explains the mass extinction of the dinosaurs – once the dominant group of animals on Earth for millions of years – states that an asteroid impact some 65 million years ago brought their demise, wiping them out along with 70% of all life on the planet. A new study, however, […]
So far… it’s re-extinction Almost 10 years ago, on July 30, 2003, a team of Spanish and French scientists reversed time. They brought an animal back from extinction, if only just to see it go extinct again. The animal they revived was a kind of wild goat known as a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex. For […]
Each year, towards the end of March, we mark Earth Hour – a worldwide event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that encourages households and institutions to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change. Sorry to the Australians and […]
Rapidly expanding road networks are causing massive direct and indirect damage to forests but proper infrastructure planning and implementation could actually turn them into a net positive for the environment, argue researchers writing in the journal Science. William Laurance and Andrew Balmford have studied the severe negative environmental issues caused by expanding road networks in […]
In one of the first articles I’ve ever written on ZME Science, all the way back in 2007 (has it really been 6 years? Wow!), I was telling you about an interesting plan of cooling global temperatures by fertilizing the world’s oceans with iron. This would in cause turn a phytoplankton explosion, which would suck […]
There is still unbelievably much we have yet to discover from the Amazon. Now, researchers have uncovered two new species of woodlizards from Peru. Woodlizards are little known species of reptiles, with only 10 species being described so far, all of which are found in Central or South America (9 in Peru). These new found […]
Researchers find out new species all the time, but really, when do they ever find a creature that looks like it was spawned by the fiery volcano of Mordor? Coal-black with orange-tinted toes, the new crocodile newt was identified as a different species when biologists spotted a series of differences to nearly related species. “I […]
The fearsome monster that inspired Greek and Norse mythology was once driven almost to extinction, facing a genetic bottleneck event that marked their evolution as a species. The finding comes from an analysis of tissue samples from 43 giant squid (Architeuthis spp.) from around the world. The analysis were mostly concluded on specimens which were […]
Recently, a big drop in swallow road-kill numbers was observed, without humans changing anything on their part. So biologists set out to see what swallows have been doing differently that allows them to be so much better at avoiding cars. They discovered that roadside nesting cliff swallows have evolved shorter, more manoeuvrable wings that gives […]
Up until the mind XIXth century most homes and buildings were made out of wood, a readily available and cheap material. However, like we all know wood is easily flammable and caused a myriad of issues, especially in urban environments. How many times were whole cities at risk of being whipped out by flames? Rome? […]
An extremely worrisome climate model predicts, based on current global warming projections, that storm surges – the most damaging and dangerous part of a hurricane – are set to increase in frequency and magnitude by as much as ten times by the turn of the century due to climate change. The scientists involved in the […]
I had the chance to witness, on several occasions, how bears change their behaviors when people feed them (which they really shouldn’t!). Bears, who usually just avoid people, or if they feel threatened display some sort of aggressive behavior, just started to beg for food, much like a dog around Thanksgiving dinner. This dramatically altered […]
Way back before clocks were a thing, people had another natural way of waking up: the rooster’s crow. Now, a new study shows that they are so exact, that they don’t even need the light of a new day to know when it’s dawn – they just rely on their internal clocks. Nagoya University […]
A recent study that asked human participants with minimal experience with dogs to judge the latter’s facial expression showed that we have an inherent ability to empathize with canines. Humans and dogs have been evolving side-by-side for the past 100,000 years and the study suggests that we are capable of judging a dog’s emotions similarly if […]
A NOAA paper published 4 years ago showed, almost beyond the shadow of a doubt, that climate change is irreversible for approximately for approximately 1000 years. Despite this and several other papers that had pretty much the same conclusions, people still believe that climate change is reversible in the near future; it’s not. We’ve reached […]
In a great leap forward towards reviving extinct animal species, scientists at University of New South Wales, Australia have grown embryos that contain the genetic markup of a rather peculiar, yet unfortunately extinct frog species native to Australia. The frog died off in the 1980s due to parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds and fungus, and […]
Though we’ve accomplish our knowledge a great deal in the past decades of bird evolution there are still many loose ends and debate is far from being settled. A general consensus among paleontologists is that birds today are actually a sort of modern dinosaurs, now recent fossils findings from China suggest early birds some 150 million years ago were four-winged […]
You might be used to seeing birds peck grains as soon as you throw the food in front of them, so it’s no wonder why might find this surprising. University of Vienna established a cognitive experiment centered around a most intelligent type of bird – Cackatoos – and found that they’re capable of self-control, restraining […]
It is indeed a war of manipulation and misdirection, but the main actors are not the ones you may think about first. As a new study concluded, some 3 out of every 4 climate change denial books have direct, easily verifiable connections to conservative organizations. A research conducted by Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State […]
You often hear discussions about how much oil there is still left in the world’s underground. Listen to oil companies they’ll tell you there’s plenty to go around, absolutely no need to worry; listen to fanatic environmentalists and they’ll tell you that in two decades, we’re pretty much screwed. So why not listen to someone […]
This might be the weirdest news piece you’ll read all day. Apparently, the Ukrainian navy is only one of two navies in the world, the other being the US navy, which has navy killer dolphins at their disposal. These warrior sea-mammals are trained to place and hunt down mines and attack enemy frogmen divers with knives […]
Hotter than ever, basically.
The inevitable 2012 title was ‘Human population reaches 7 billion‘, surpassing anything anyone could have imagined 100 years ago. Now, we’re approaching a very worrying milestone – CO2 levels in the air will reach 400 ppm (parts per million), for the first time in human existence. CO2 levels have risen at a quick, steady pace […]
We’ve been telling you on and on – millions and millions of sharks are perishing each year, mostly due to shark finning – people fish sharks, cut off their fins, them let them go, only to suffer a slow, painful, humiliating death, unable to move at the bottom of the ocean. Shark fin soup is […]
MIT researchers have published a detailed analysis of all the factors that could limit the efficiency of such a system, basically laying a roadmap for a research program to improve the efficiency of so-called artificial leafs. An artificial leaf has to produce a storable fuel, such as hydrogen, instead of electricity for immediate use; the […]
A group of international researchers assessed 17 state-of-the-art climate model simulations and based on these have found that temperature seasonality shifts and green plants could move further north by as much as a whooping 20 degrees latitude by the turn of the century. So far, in the past 30 years alone, southern vegetation has moved […]
We have a rather sound image in our heads of Antarctica: cold, barren and damn well inhospitable. Million of years ago before a big freeze turned the continent into a huge popsicle, Antarctica was flat, covered in vegetation and riddled with flowing rivers and life. University of Arizona researchers have sampled key sediments from the Lambert Graben […]
An international team of researchers set out on the daunting task of surveying the Central African elephant population. Their results offer a new harsh cold shower as to the critical situation wildlife our planet is currently in. Their findings suggest the African elephant population in the area has plummeted by a staggering 62% and their […]
Honeybees are extraordinary animals, and for years scientists have looked at them for inspiration to develop new technologies from artificial hive mind computers to explosive detectors. Bees have been truly gifted by nature, and we’re only starting to unravel the many abilities these fantastic insects possess. Recently, researchers at Newcastle University have found that bees enjoy […]
Ever since the days of the ancient Greek, people were puzzled by the fact that apparently, hippos sweat blood; this belief propagated for more than a millenium. Now, we know that the thick red substance, which oozes from glands all over its skin, is one of the hippo’s many ingenious survival tools. Thing is, hippos […]
By observing several indicators, a team of researchers from Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences concluded that in as few as 87 years from now, temperatures are expected to be bigger than anytime in the existence of the human species. Paleoclimatic research is providing a more detailed look on how the […]
New DNA analysis of an ancient dog tooth sample found in Siberia suggests that the modern dog might be as well as 33,000 years old. If indeed the sample comes from a domesticated dog, then it would push back the origin of today’s house pets more than 18,000 years. This significant discovery was made after […]
We typically tend to associate camels with dry, barren, scorching hot deserts, but the truth is the animals first originated in North America’s Arctic region. A recent discovery of an ancient giant camel in Canada’s High Arctic region adds further weight to this claim, and shows just how adaptable the animal was in its migration […]
Within the next 50 years, numerous lizard species could become extinct due to global warming, a research by Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln (UK) concludes. Not all lizards lay eggs – some are viviparous, and develop their embryos inside the mother’s body as opposed to an egg. […]
A group of researchers assessed seven individual climate models and found that in each case common open water vessels will be able to navigate through portions of the Arctic, currently possible only with icebreaker ships, by the mid-century. Moreover, the thinning ice will allow ice-strengthened vessels to sail directly over the pole, something currently unimaginable, dramatically shortening […]
Climate change deniers were ecstatic – our planet wasn’t warming as fast as models predicted it; ha! Everything crumbles down, global warming is a hoax and all is good in the world, right? Wrong. The main question in science is “Why?”, and researchers started asking the question. Are all the models wrong, is there something […]
In New Orleans, a landmark trial began to assess whether BP was grossly negligent during the 2010 BP oil spill. Ethically speaking, not only was BP grossly negligent, but the spill was just grossly… gross! Estimates show that 4.1 million barrels of oil were spilled into the gulf of Mexico, making it the largest accidental […]
International treaties to protect the elephants are not working – that’s the sad truth. There is no real, practical way of enforcing them, and as a result, whatever few elephants are left are still being tracked down and hunted, mostly for their tusks. Researchers estimate that tens of thousands of African elephants are now being […]
Japan will never stop its annual hunt for whales, a government minister has reportedly said, despite recent clashes between whalers and environmental organizations. “I don’t think there will be any kind of an end for whaling by Japan,” Yoshimasa Hayashi, the Japanese minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said in an interview with the French […]
For some time now, researchers have been experimenting with the idea of an aircraft that operates with flapping wings, just like insects or birds do, instead of conventional flat and long wings. The idea is that flapping wings allow a much greater degree of control and stability, allowing the aircraft to perform maneuvers otherwise impossible. […]
Cockroaches are maybe the most amazing insects in the animal kingdom – they’re simply made to survive. These little buggers can survive in sub-zero temperatures, can withstand a lethal dose of radiation up to 15 times of that for humans, can live without food for a whole month and … they can live with a […]
Here’s another consequence of global warming: our planet’s increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do by 10% in the past 6 decades. Basically, hotter air tends to retain more humidity, and as anyone who’s worked in high humidity conditions can tell you – that’s not pleasant. When it’s not […]
Earlier today I wrote about some recent findings that suggest humans have evolved unique brain structures from other primates. Don’t be fooled however in thinking many of the activities we undertake every day are solely found in human culture. Dolphins communicate with each other much like humans do and besides tool use, chimps know that […]
A new climate model has predicted dramatic snow fall decline worldwide as a result of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide in the next 100 years. Many regions in the world depend on fresh water as a result of snow melt, which means if the study’s predictions hold that dire consequences to the biosphere and climate balance await. […]
A new type of lake monster has been found, in the depths of Lake Tahoe: gigantic goldfish; and as cute as they are, their influence is just disastrous for the local ecosystem. The goldfish is an invasive species for that environment, adapting to the situation so well that it pretty much annihilated its competition, growing […]
Pollination is the game, “summon bees” is the spell, and electricity is the mana – that’s how I’d try to explain it to a gamer. A little more on the serious side, flowers advertise presence of nectar to bees using electrical signals, basically indicating if they’ve been visited by another bee or not. Usually, plants […]
Paleontologists have found evidence of animal life dating back at least 635 million years. Those animals acted much like today’s sponges, stuck in the sea floor, filtering water particles for useful nutrients in the sea. But just over 100 million years later, during the Cambrian explosion, life really started to pump its engines. All sorts […]
The massive, global risk that global warming poses has once again been highlighted by researchers – this time, by geologists studying fossil records. It’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s even better to prevent than treat, and learn from the past (even though it’s not your past) – and paleontology is really good […]
A new study led by an international team of biolgoists has shown just some brain chemicals allow seals to sleep with only half of the brain. “Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. […]
Every bottlenose dolphin makes its own distinctive sound, a high-pitched “eeee” through which they announce their presence. However, dolphins are also great at mimicking sounds, being able to copy even intricate computer generated sounds; this made researchers curious to see if dolphins can in fact mimic each other’s sound, and how they use this ability […]
