More than a third of the world’s 280 freshwater turtle species are threatened with extinction, according to a new analysis by Conservation International (CI). CI’s latest assessment, undertaken as part of World Water Week, explains that the catastrophic decline of the world’s freshwater turtles is primarily being caused by the unsustainable harvesting of turtles and…

Facing the worst outbreak of forest fires in three years, cattle ranchers and indigenous tribesmen in the southern Amazon have teamed up to extinguish nearly two dozen blazes over the past three months, offering hope that new alliances between long-time adversaries could help keep deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon on a downward trajectory. The…

Decades of overfishing have deprived the food industry of billions of dollars in revenue and the world of fish that could have helped feed undernourished countries, according to a series of studies released on Tuesday. The Canadian, U.S. and British researchers behind the studies also said that overfishing is often the result of government subsidies…

The sky is not quite unchanging, just slow and far away. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, catches a lot of the meteors, comets and other sky debris and in that way protects the inner planets such as Earth. Amateur astronomers working with professional astronomers have spotted two fireballs lighting up Jupiter’s atmosphere…

As September begins to bring cooler temperatures, Americans can look back objectively at the past summer (June-August). The above average temperatures in the contiguous states combined to make it the fourth warmest ever. Only seven of the lower 48 states had normal temperatures, and 29 were much above normal. This news is detailed in the…

Primitive tidal mills operated in the England date back to the 11th century. During the 18th century, several tidal mills popped up in Western Europe. The news that the world’s largest tidal turbine – 1 MW in size – will be installed off the coast of Scotland near Orkney should come as no surprise.

The prospects of a new global climate change pact still hinge on resolving the divisions between rich nations and the developing world, a top Chinese climate negotiator said in remarks published on Monday. “Right now there are still huge differences between developed and developing countries in the negotiations on climate change problems,” said Su Wei,…

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma (a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere) and sometimes also a tail. Occasionally, they will collide with planets such as the Earth. New research from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists shows that comets that crashed into Earth…

A toxin produced by a type of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, has been devastating a colony of sea otters off the coast of California. In a paper published in the journal, PLoS ONE, by the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, researchers link the…

There was a time in the South when planting kudzu was not viewed as botanical vandalism, but as a community-spirited gesture. The vine, imported from Asia, was intended to control erosion and provide forage for livestock. Some things just don’t work out.