Author: Ranveer Kumar

Found Across Eastern United States, Animals Face Extinction Due to Habitat Destruction, Climate Change WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice today of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the agency’s denial of endangered species protection to 21 species under the Trump administration. From MacGillivray’s seaside sparrow on the Atlantic Coast to the Kirtland’s snake in the Midwest, these species face serious threats to their survival from habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species and pollution. “The Trump administration’s anti-environmental agenda infected every decision it made, including denial of protection to these 21 species,” said Noah…

Exercise and a healthy diet in childhood leads to adults with bigger brains and lower levels of anxiety, according to new UC Riverside research in mice. Though diet and exercise are consistently recommended as ways to promote health, this study is the first to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life. “Any time you go to the doctor with concerns about your weight, almost without fail, they recommend you exercise and eat less,” said study lead and UCR physiology doctoral student Marcell Cadney. “That’s why it’s surprising most studies only look at…

Data collected from 337 cities across 18 countries show that even slight increases in ambient carbon monoxide levels from automobiles and other sources are associated with increased mortality. A scientific team led by Yale School of Public Health Assistant Professor Kai Chen analyzed data, including a total of 40 million deaths from 1979 to 2016, and ran it through a statistical model. The research, published today in The Lancet Planetary Health, also found that even short-term exposure to ambient carbon monoxide (CO) — at levels below the current air quality guidelines and considered safe — had an association with increased mortality.…

Virtual buoys and time triggered traps reduce risk to endangered North Atlantic right whale, but reactions among fishers in US and Canada are mixed Ropes that spring to the water’s surface when summoned and virtual buoys could hold the key to saving one of the world’s most endangered whale species, scientists and conservation groups have said. As the North Atlantic right whale nears the brink of extinction – amid reports of whales tangled in metres of thick fishing lines and findings suggesting 85% of the population have been entangled at least once – calls have grown for the adoption of ropeless fishing, using gear…

The winds howl in chorus across the arid plains of Central and East Asia, unimpeded by forests or mountains. Ground once peppered with the hoof prints of countless saiga antelope has increasingly grown bare as saiga have inched closer to extinction. Yet, in addition to their tubular noses, saiga are renowned for being survivors, and their latest breeding season brought long absent good fortune to this belabored species. Researchers discovered 530 saiga calves tucked beneath the tall grasses of Kazakhstan’s Ustyurt Plateau, a miraculous number of newborns found in just a single aggregation. In neighboring Mongolia, the saiga population also…

Over the last few decades, China has rapidly established special economic zones (SEZ) not only within its borders but also in different parts of the world. While initial efforts focused on using domestic SEZs as a way to facilitate its market-oriented reforms, a large number of regional SEZs have emerged since the beginning of the 21st century. However, as China expands its economic footprints and influence across the world through SEZs, experts told the Independent that regions with high levels of Chinese investment face the risk of environmental degradation and flouting of local and international laws. “Investors rarely care very much about the local…

The election of President Joe Biden has been the cause of much hand-wringing in the United States oil and gas sector. The current U.S. president has made clean energy and climate change a central part of his platform, at what many fear will be the expense of shale, one of the nation’s key economic sectors. “Unfortunately, our economic bedrock of oil and gas is under attack by an administration that is bent on eliminating millions of jobs,” Republican Congressman Brian Babin told the public back in February at a press event along with six other Texan lawmakers, as he stood in front of the…

The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta rays and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles. Ecologists have assumed this global pattern has remained stable over recent centuries — until now. Our recent study found the ocean around the equator has already become too hot for many species to survive, and that global warming is responsible. In other words, the global pattern is rapidly changing. And as species flee to…

Rich profits from the prized nut have failed to benefit those finding them. Now cooperatives hope to shake up the system On a steamy March morning, Edivan Kaxarari walks with a few other villagers in single file down a trail in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil’s Rondônia state, near the border with Bolivia. His sister-in-law Cleiciana carries her 11-month-old son in one arm and a rifle in the other, and his brother Edson clears the path ahead with a machete. It is hunting season for the seeds of the Amazonian Brazil nut tree. Brazil nuts have never been successfully cultivated at scale on farms,…

Ten species have been left in “regulatory purgatory,” according to the lawsuit.   The Biden administration is continuing to field lawsuits filed over Endangered Species Act decisions made by the Trump administration. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday over its failure to provide protections under the Endangered Species Act for 10 species “it admitted needed them,” according to the organization. Among the species are the monarch butterfly, which in December the Trump administration decided that adding it to the list of threatened species was “warranted but precluded.” This meant that while the monarch…