FLORA FAUNA - AFRICA DAILY

Mar 24, 2016 (SPX)

UCF biologist Anna Savage is obsessed with frogs and figuring out why they are dying at an unprecedented rate around the world. Her latest research, published i...

You taste like mercury, said the spider to the fly

Mar 24, 2016 (SPX)

More mercury than previously thought is moving from aquatic to land food webs when stream insects are consumed by spiders, a Dartmouth College-led study shows. ...

Minimalist cells: Scientists strip genome down to essentials

Mar 24, 2016 (UPI)

Researchers have created a new species of bacteria using the fewest number of genes possible. It turns out the genetic ingredient list for life is longer than s...

Modeling to save a rare plant

Mar 24, 2016 (SPX)

Human activities continue to expand. At the same time, an increasing number of plants face habitat loss and fragmentation. In fact, more than 700 plants are cla...

Plant's morning calls to prepare for the night

Mar 24, 2016 (SPX)

Plants prepare for cold evenings by triggering biological processes, such as closing of their stomata and synthesizing wax to prevent water loss. Biologists hav...

Nigeria bets on elephants and warm springs to lure tourists

Mar 23, 2016 (AFP)

A luxury safari is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when potential tourists think of Nigeria but that's exactly what Yankari Game Reserve is hopi...

New boss aims to get Kenya's wildlife service back on track

Mar 23, 2016 (AFP)

Kenya's new wildlife chief must overhaul a national agency described in a recent government investigation as having "lost its way". Conservationists welcomed th...

Scientists say many plants don't respond to warming as thought

Mar 23, 2016 (SPX)

Plants, like people, breathe, and when it gets hotter, they breathe harder. One product of respiration is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Thus, researchers p...

City birds are smarter than country birds

Mar 23, 2016 (SPX)

Birds living in urban environments are smarter than birds from rural environments. But, why do city birds have the edge over their country friends? They adapted...

Grass and flowers sourced locally

Mar 23, 2016 (SPX)

Colorful, low-intensity grasslands do not only look attractive, but also offer valuable habitat for many plants and animals. Yet they have become rare in many p...

Many species now going extinct may vanish without a fossil trace

Mar 22, 2016 (SPX)

Scientists struggle to compare the magnitude of Earth's ongoing sixth mass-extinction event with the five great die-offs of prehistory. A new study by three pal...

Spelling mutations and evolutionary advantages

Mar 22, 2016 (SPX)

Different people sometimes spell the same word differently - organisation versus organization, or analogue versus analog. In such words, despite the variation i...

Is Alaska's first new butterfly species in decades an ancient hybrid?

Mar 22, 2016 (SPX)

Some might say it takes a rare breed to survive the Alaska wilderness. The discovery of a possible new species of hybrid butterfly from the state's interior is ...

China widens ban on ivory imports

Mar 22, 2016 (AFP)

China said Tuesday it has widened a ban on ivory imports as it comes under pressure to restrict a trade which sees thousands of African elephants slaughtered ev...

Dissecting the animal diet, past and present

Mar 21, 2016 (SPX)

Researchers at Yale and the Smithsonian Institution say it's time to settle a very old food fight. In a study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, au...

Small birds' vision: Not so sharp but superfast

Mar 21, 2016 (SPX)

One may expect a creature that darts around its habitat to be capable of perceiving rapid changes as well. Yet birds are famed more for their good visual acuity...

Biological field stations: Keeping a pulse on our planet

Mar 21, 2016 (SPX)

A recent BioScience paper provides the first comprehensive inventory of the world's biological field stations. Its authors report 1,268 stations are operating i...

Searching for the last lions in Nigeria

Mar 21, 2016 (AFP)

Under a starless night sky in Yankari Game Reserve, Martial Kiki stands on the back of a battered pick-up truck searching for the last lions in Nigeria. From th...

Chemical engineers let hard-working cells live, kill lazy cells

Mar 21, 2016 (UPI)

Some genetically engineered microbes work harder than their lazier, but otherwise identical peers, and engineers can now measure output, and kill lazy cells. Th...

UNESCO adds 20 new sites to list of biosphere reserves

Mar 20, 2016 (AFP)

The United Nation's cultural body UNESCO has added 20 new sites to its network of protected biosphere nature reserves, including two in Canada and two in Portug...