FLORA FAUNA - AFRICA DAILY

Nov 03, 2014 (SPX)

Architecture imitates life, at least when it comes to those spiral ramps in multistory parking garages. Stacked and connecting parallel levels, the ramps are re...

Europe has 421 million fewer birds than 30 years ago: study

Nov 03, 2014 (AFP)

Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago, and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common species, a stu...

Does it help conservation to put a price on nature?

Nov 03, 2014 (SPX)

Putting a price on the services which a particular ecosystem provides may encourage the adoption of greener policies, but it may come at the price of biodiversi...

Developer, conservationists agree to protect Texas bat colony

Nov 03, 2014 (UPI)

Thanks to a combination of public and private funding, the Nature Conservancy was recently able to purchase a large swath of land from a developer in San Antoni...

Ten hospitalized in Nicaragua killer bee attack

Nov 02, 2014 (AFP)

Ten people were hospitalized in Nicaragua after being attacked by a swarm of killer bees disturbed during cemetery cleaning ahead of the Day of the Dead festiva...

Philippines' rare dwarf buffalo charges against extinction

Oct 31, 2014 (AFP)

The population of the Philippines' dwarf buffalo, one of the world's rarest animals, has grown to its largest since efforts to save them from extinction began, ...

Restoring wetlands can lessen soil sinkage, greenhouse gas emissions

Oct 31, 2014 (SPX)

Restoring wetlands can help reduce or reverse soil subsidence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to research in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin ...

Thriving in Poland, Hucul ponies yet to gallop in native Ukraine

Oct 30, 2014 (AFP)

At the foot of the wild Carpathian mountains in Poland near the Ukraine border, both countries are working to protect the Hucul pony, a small native horse breed...

Scientists make enzyme that could help explain origins of life

Oct 30, 2014 (SPX)

Mimicking natural evolution in a test tube, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised an enzyme with a unique property that might have be...

Why plants don't get sunburn

Oct 30, 2014 (SPX)

Plants rely on sunlight to make their food, but they also need protection from its harmful rays, just like humans do. Recently, scientists discovered a group of...

Evolution of competitiveness

Oct 30, 2014 (SPX)

Virtually all organisms in the living world compete with members of their own species. However, individuals differ strongly in how much they invest into their c...

Study uses DNA sequences to look back in time at plant evolution

Oct 29, 2014 (SPX)

Scientists from North America, Europe and China have published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that reveals important details abo...

New analysis advances our understanding of photosynthesis

Oct 28, 2014 (SPX)

A world without plants would be a world without oxygen, uninhabitable for us and for many creatures. We know plants release oxygen by absorbing carbon dioxide a...

Using microscopic bugs to save the bees

Oct 28, 2014 (SPX)

For decades, honeybees have been battling a deadly disease that kills off their babies (larvae) and leads to hive collapse. It's called American Foulbrood and i...

Intact 700-year-old virus found in caribou dung

Oct 28, 2014 (UPI)

Frozen caribou feces collected from the Selwyn mountains of Canada's Yukon and Northern Territories contained only fragments of its depositor's DNA. But the ice...

Giant Galapagos tortoises are making a comeback

Oct 28, 2014 (UPI)

The giant tortoises of the Galapagos Island were on the brink of extinction just a half-century ago, but 40 years after several specimens of the endangered spec...

How ferns adapted to one of Earth's newest and most extreme environments

Oct 27, 2014 (SPX)

Ferns are believed to be 'old' plant species - some of them lived alongside the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago. However, a group of Andean ferns evolved ...

African lion deserves 'endangered species' protection: US

Oct 27, 2014 (AFP)

Loss of habitat and prey are putting African lions in danger of extinction, and the majestic creatures need protection in order to save their species, the US go...

Synthetic biology on ordinary paper, results off the page

Oct 27, 2014 (SPX)

New achievements in synthetic biology announced by researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, which will allow complex cellular re...

Florida lizards evolve rapidly, within 15 years and 20 generations

Oct 27, 2014 (SPX)

Scientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species - in as little as 15 years - as a result of pressure fro...