Monthly Archives: December 2018

Machine learning helps predict worldwide plant-conservation priorities

There are many organizations monitoring endangered species such as elephants and tigers, but what about the millions of other species on the planet -- ones that most people have never heard of or don't think about? How do scientists assess the threat level of, say, the plicate rocksnail, Caribbean spiny lobster or Torrey pine tree?

A...

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First jellyfish genome reveals ancient beginnings of complex body plan

Jellyfish undergo an amazing metamorphosis, from tiny polyps growing on the seafloor to swimming medusae with stinging tentacles. This shape-shifting has served them well, shepherding jellyfish through more than 500 million years of mass extinctions on Earth.

"Whatever they're doing has really worked for them," said David Gold, an assistant professor of paleobiology in the UC...

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The secret contamination of polar bears

Using a new approach to measure chemical contaminants in polar bears, scientists from Canada and the United States found a large variety of new chlorinated and fluorinated substances, including many new polychlorinated biphenyl metabolites. Worryingly, these previously unrecognized contaminants have not declined in the past decades, and many long-chain fluorinated alkyl sulfonic acids have been...

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Undercover investigation: Socio-economic survey of pangolin hunting in Assam, India

Alarming footage captured by World Animal Protection and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at University of Oxford reveals the heart-breaking moment a pangolin is brutally killed for its body parts to be sold on the black market in Assam, north-eastern India.

The footage was captured by an undercover researcher on their mobile phone, and shows...

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