Viruses that cause the common cold in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it’s a bigger killer than habitat loss or poaching
There was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.
Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but normally, the bodies of chimps are found long after decomposition has set in, if at all. So when Tony Goldberg, a US wildlife epidemiologist visiting Kibale, got word that an adult female named Stella had been found freshly dead, he knew this was a rare opportunity to look for an answer.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/02/2024 - 00:00
Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring data
Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.
Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.
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05/01/2024 - 15:29
US Senate hearing reviewed report showing sector’s shift from climate denial to ‘deception, disinformation and doublespeak’
The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak”.
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05/01/2024 - 13:16
Kenya Red Cross rescues more than 90 people from hotels and lodges as heavy rainfall continues
Scores of tourists have been evacuated by air from Kenya’s Maasai Mara national reserve after more than a dozen hotels, lodges and camps were flooded as heavy rains battered the country.
Tourist accommodation facilities were submerged after a river in the Maasai Mara broke its banks on Wednesday morning. The reserve, in south-west Kenya, is a popular tourist destination because it features the annual wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Tanzania.
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04/30/2024 - 23:00
Trifluoroacetic acid found in drinking water and rain is thought to damage fertility and child development
Rapidly rising levels of TFA, a class of “forever chemical” thought to damage fertility and child development, are being found in drinking water, blood and rain, causing alarm among experts.
TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, is a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), a group of human-made chemicals used widely in consumer products that do not break down for thousands of years. Many of the substances have been linked to negative effects on human health.
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04/30/2024 - 16:00
This blog is now closed.
Faruqi v Hanson: Pauline Hanson told ‘white’ Derryn Hinch to go back to where he came from, court told
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As we flagged earlier, the treasurer Jim Chalmers will today announce foreign investment changes, with approvals to be made quicker and greater scrutiny to be placed on potential risks.
You can read all the details on this from Peter Hannam below:
Right now, we treat investments from right around the world more or less the same. We want to streamline it for the less-risky investments so we can devote much more time and energy and resources to screening the sorts of investments that we’re seeing in critical industries – like critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data, and the like.
This is all about strengthening the foreign investment framework to make sure that investment is in the national interest. We want to maximise the right kind of investment, but we want to minimise risk and that’s what these changes I’ll announce today are all about.
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04/30/2024 - 12:19
A team of researchers has investigated the motivation and potential incentives for and challenges of low-intensity grazing among farmers and land users in Europe.
04/30/2024 - 12:07
Joshua Alexander Heckathorn, 20, arrested and booked into jail for second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief
Nearly 200 programs to raise baby salmon in a controlled environment dot the rivers in Oregon, holding them before releasing them into the wild to live out their life cycle. Last week, a man broke into the Winchester Bay Salmon Trout Enhancement Program (Step) and poured bleach into a Chinook salmon tank, killing about 18,000 fish.
Authorities arrested 20-year-old Joshua Alexander Heckathorn, a resident of Gardiner, Oregon, on 23 April, a day after the chemicals were dumped into one of the hatchery rearing ponds. He told law enforcement officials he had visited a storage area the day before and picked up a bottle of bleach, according to a Facebook post by the Douglas county sheriff’s office. Heckathorn was arrested and booked into the Douglas county jail on Tuesday for second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.
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04/30/2024 - 11:23
Campaigners say loss of £200m from active travel budget is illegal and resulted from Treasury pressure
Swingeing cuts to public spending on cycling and walking in England should be overturned as government expenditure was already insufficient to meet legally binding climate targets, the high court has been told.
Campaigners are challenging a decision in 2023 to cut more than £200m from the Department for Transport’s active travel budget for the following two years.
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04/30/2024 - 09:55
Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in understanding how genetic drivers influence the evolution of a specific photosynthesis mechanism in Tillandsia (air plants). This sheds light on the complex actions that cause plant adaptation and ecological diversity.
