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| BAMBOO UNDER EXTINCTION THREAT |
| It’s bad news for pandas. Up to half of the world's 1,200 woody bamboo species are in danger of extinction, a UN report has revealed. Urgent action is needed to protect the plants and the species that depend on them, the study’s authors conclude. |
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| US ARMY MAY HAVE KILLED ITALIAN TREES |
| The US Army may have unwittingly killed hundreds of pine trees in an Italian hunting estate. Genetic analysis suggests that the trees were infected with an American fungus, imported by US troops during the Second World War. |
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| CONSERVING FISH MAY BACKFIRE ON BIRDS |
| A proposal to suddenly stop fishing cod in the North Sea to give dwindling fish stocks a chance to replenish has been questioned by international research. |
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| GREAT BARRIER REEF DOOMED BY 2050, STUDY |
| The brightly-coloured corals that make Australia's Great Barrier Reef will be largely dead by 2050 because of rising sea temperatures, according to a new report. |
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| DECLINING SHARKS |
| The transformation of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems by humans is well known, but only recently have the impacts of anthropogenic forces in the open ocean been recognized. In particular, intense exploitation by industrial fisheries is rapidly changing oceanic ecosystems by drastically reducing populations of many marine species. For most oceanic species we lack a historical perspective. |
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| BENDS MAY BE CULPRIT IN WHALE STRANDINGS |
| Gas filled bubbles discovered in the damaged tissues of stranded whales provide new evidence that military sonar can give whales the bends.
An international team of scientists led by Dr P. D. Jepson of the Zoological Society of London report their findings in today’s issue of the journal Nature. |
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| WHALING MAY HAVE DECIMATED SEALS, SEA LIONS |
| Crashes in seal, sea lion and sea otter populations in some parts of the world may have occurred because intense commercial whaling forced killer whales to turn to new prey for food, a new U.S. study suggests. |
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| OCEAN PLANT LIFE SLOWS DOWN AND ABSORBS LESS CARBON |
| Plant life in the world's oceans has become less productive since the early 1980s, absorbing less carbon, which may in turn impact the Earth's carbon cycle, according to a study that combines NASA satellite data with NOAA surface observations of marine plants. |
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| MYSTERY CANCER WIPING OUT TASMANIAN DEVILS |
| A mysterious cancer is killing Australia's Tasmanian devils, whose spine-chilling screeches, dark colour and reputed bad temper prompted early settlers to give them their chilling name. |
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| PORTRAIT OF A DOOMED SEA |
| Earth’s youngest desert is shown in this July MERIS satellite image of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, over the last 40 years the Aral Sea has evaporated back to half its original surface area and a quarter its initial volume, leaving a 40,000 square kilometre zone of dry white-coloured salt terrain now called the Aralkum Desert. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING A 'WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION' |
| Global climate change induced by humans is a 'weapon of mass destruction' at least as dangerous as nuclear, chemical or biological arms, a leading climate scientist has said. |
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| MORE RACCOONS MAY MEAN FEWER SONGBIRDS |
| Songbirds are in trouble throughout the eastern U.S. and new research suggests that raccoons are a major part of the problem. Raccoons love eggs, and the study shows that populations of birds with accessible nests have been dropping since raccoon populations began rising in the early 1980s in Illinois. |
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| ALIEN EARTHWORMS CHANGING ECOLOGY OF NORTHEAST FORESTS. URI RESEARCHERS EVALUATING IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENT. |
| Some forests throughout the Northeast are rapidly changing, but most observers won't notice it unless they take a close look at the soil beneath their feet. That's because the driving force behind the changing forests are earthworms, which play a key role in recycling nutrients in the soil but which may also be altering habitat for plants, salamanders, birds and other wildlife. |
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| ANTHROPOLOGIST PREDICTS MAJOR THREAT TO SPECIES WITHIN 50 YEARS |
| If the world’s human population continues to rise at its current rate, the planet will increase the numbers of threatened species at least 7 percent worldwide in the next 20 years and twice that many by the year 2050. |
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| MYSTERY VIRUS PUSHING INDIAN VULTURES TO EXTINCTION |
| Vultures were almost as common as sparrows in India. But the arrival of a mystery virus a decade ago has wiped out 95% of the species, and some scientists believe the gawky birds are on the brink of extinction. |
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| NATURE COVER STORY - ONLY 10% OF ALL LARGE FISH ARE LEFT IN GLOBAL OCEAN |
| The cover story of the May 15th issue of the international journal Nature reveals that we have only 10% of all large fish-- both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish such as cod, halibut, skates and flounder-- left in the sea. Most strikingly, the study shows that industrial fisheries take only ten to fifteen years to grind any new fish community they encounter to one tenth of what it was before. |
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| CRASH IN MALE SAIGA ANTELOPE NUMBERS DRIVES SPECIES CLOSER TO EXTINCTION |
| Scientists researching the population numbers of saiga antelope in Russia have found that in the case of the male, there may be a deadly truth in the old boast, 'So many women, so little time.' |
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| LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLES CAREENING TOWARDS EXTINCTION. SCIENTISTS CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO SAVE GIANT. |
| Today, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting (AAAS) scientists made an impassioned appeal for international cooperation to save leatherback sea turtles from extinction. |
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| RAT-BORNE DISEASES ON THE RISE, SCIENTISTS WARN |
| Infectious diseases carried by rats may be a human health time-bomb, researchers warned an international conference in Canberra. |
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| POLAR BEAR HEADED FOR EXTINCTION, SAYS UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA SCIENTIST |
| Unless the pace of global warming is abated, polar bears could disappear within 100 years, says a University of Alberta expert in Arctic ecosystems. |
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| STUNG BY SUCCESS: INTENSIVE FARMING MAY SUPPRESS POLLINATING BEES |
| Intensive, industrial-scale farming may be damaging one of the very natural resources that successful crops require: pollinating bees. A study by Princeton scientists found that native bee populations decline dramatically as agricultural intensity goes up. |
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| AFRICAN BEETLE THREATENS AUSTRALIAN BEES |
| A small African beetle with the potential to cripple the honey industry has been identified in Australia, scientists announced this week. |
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| THE CONTRACEPTIVE PLAGUE |
| After more than a decade of trying, Australian researchers have created a highly infectious virus that could wipe out the country's rabbit pests by making them sterile. |
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| SCIENTISTS FIND CAUSE OF DEAD CRABS, FISH OFF COAST. |
| An unusual combination of oceanic and atmospheric events may be to blame for a mysterious and sudden die-off of numerous crabs, fish and invertebrate animals off the central Oregon coast during the past two weeks. |
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| MUDDY MAYAN MYSTERY MADE CLEARER BY RESEARCHERS WORKING IN THE 'BAJOS' |
| A team of scholars led by University of Cincinnati professors Nicholas and Vernon Scarborough found evidence of a major environmental transformation that helps to explain a puzzle that has stumped Maya scholars for decades. Why would the Maya live in an area where the primary water source is little more than mud half of the year? |
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| WARMER WORLD WILL BE A SICKER WORLD, SAY SCIENTISTS |
| Rising tide of wildlife epidemics linked to climate change: Unprecedented numbers of disease outbreaks in marine and terrestrial populations have ecologists and epidemiologists on alert. |
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| NEW STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON FROG MALFORMATIONS |
| The emergence of mutant frogs with extra arms and legs may smack of a low-budget sci-fi script. But it is a reality, and a new study provides more evidence that ultraviolet radiation could be responsible. The findings are reported in three consecutive papers in the July 1 print issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. |
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| THE BIOACOUSTICS RESEARCH PROGRAM PAGE OF BAJA WHALE SOUNDS. |
| The very-low-frequency courtship songs of fin whales and blue whales are the most powerful and ubiquitous biological sounds in the oceans. But the artificial racket created by ships and other human sources could be interfering with whale reproduction and population recovery, marine scientists report in the latest edition (June 20, 2002) of the journal Nature. |
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| WILDLIFE SURVIVES WILDFIRE |
| Research in Australia's Simpson Desert is overturning the traditional view of drought being 'bad' and flood signalling good times for flora and fauna.
Despite the massive fires that have ravaged the desert for the last five months, scientists from Sydney University have found that small mammal populations are thriving. |
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| NEW REPORT DOCUMENTS DRAMATIC DECLINE IN BELUGA STURGEON IN THE CASPIAN SEA |
| Conservation organizations call for immediate halt to international trade of beluga caviar. Citing a report released this week that documents the perilous state of beluga sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, three conservation organizations through the Caviar Emptor campaign reiterated their call for an immediate and sustained halt in international trade of caviar from the endangered beluga sturgeon. |
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| WHALES GET THE BENDS. NOISE CAN BRING ON DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS IN WHALES AND DOLPHINS |
| Underwater explosions and sonar tests may be giving whales and dolphins the equivalent of the bends. The US Navy regularly booms out sonar signals across the ocean in a bid to track submarines, and conducts controlled explosions under water. |
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| STUDY IN NATURE PROVIDES STARTLING NEW EVIDENCE OF DECLINES IN GLOBAL FISHERIES SINCE LATE ‘80’S |
| Vast over-reporting by China to United Nations has masked falling catches. Leading scientists raise serious concerns about world food supply of fish and management and economic decisions based on flawed data. |
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| SLASH AND BURN. IF WE WANT MORE MAHOGANY, WE NEED TO MIMIC HURRICANES AND FIRE. |
| EFFORTS to re-establish the world's mahogany trees are misfiring. "Green" forestry practices, such as selective logging, are not helping saplings as much as clearing large patches of rainforest. |
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| A FISH NAMED WAYNE-WANDA? |
| Hermaphrodite fish are on the rise, thanks to the birth control pill and other natural and unnatural forms of estrogen that have made their way into the water. Feminized fish were first found downstream from sewage plants in the United Kingdom. |
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| HUMANS KILLED GIANT BIRDS: BUT HOW? |
| The fossil remains of a giant flightless bird add to evidence that humans caused Australia's megafauna extinction. But fires, rather than overhunting, may have been responsible, say the researchers. |
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| FATAL ATTRACTION: SATELLITES TO DETERMINE SEA LIONS DEATHS |
| It could be a classic tabloid headline off a supermarket shelf - "The Autopsy from Outer Space" - except that it's true, and it could go a long way in solving a big marine mystery. |
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| URI PROFESSOR INVESTIGATES THE MUSCLE BEHIND BLUE MUSSELS |
| The blue mussel clings to life by a thread. Make that about 80 byssal threads in the winter and 30 or so threads in the summer, but you get the idea that life for these hard-shelled mollusks is quite dramatic. |
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