June 12, 2025 Mercury contamination is surfacing as a serious concern in parts of Georgia and South Carolina, particularly in regions like the Okefenokee Swamp. University of Georgia researchers found alarmingly high levels of the neurotoxic metal in alligators, especially in older individuals and even hatchlings suggesting the toxin is passed both up the food chain and through generations. These ancient ...
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June 10, 2025 What if all life on Earth followed a surprisingly simple pattern? New research shows that in every region, species tend to cluster in small hotspots and then gradually thin out. This universal rule applies across drastically different organisms and habitats from trees to dragonflies, oceans to forests. Scientists now believe environmental filtering shapes this global distribution, providing new ...
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June 9, 2025 For millions of years, large herbivores like mastodons and giant deer shaped the Earth's ecosystems, which astonishingly stayed stable despite extinctions and upheavals. A new study reveals that only twice in 60 million years did environmental shifts dramatically reorganize these systems once with a continental land bridge, and again with climate-driven habitat change. Yet the ecosystems adapted, ...
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June 7, 2025 A massive global collaboration has tracked over 12,000 marine animals from whales to turtles to create one of the most detailed movement maps of ocean giants ever assembled. The project, MegaMove, highlights how animal migrations intersect with fishing, shipping, and pollution, revealing alarming gaps in current ocean protections. Even if 30% of ...
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June 7, 2025 Scientists have built a lab model that visually tracks how microscopic contact points between fault surfaces evolve during earthquake cycles, revealing the hidden mechanics behind both the slow buildup of tectonic stress and the rapid ruptures that cause earthquakes. This breakthrough uncovers a key physical variable long used in models but never ...
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June 6, 2025 Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians are not just battling habitat loss and pollution they're now also contending with increasingly brutal heat waves and droughts. A sweeping 40-year study shows a direct link between the rise in extreme weather events and the growing number of species landing on the endangered list. Europe, the Amazon, and Madagascar have become danger zones, with amphibians ...
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June 3, 2025 UC Davis researchers found that video telehealth visits help cat owners better care for arthritic cats without the stress of clinic visits. Owners appreciated personalized tips to improve their cat s comfort at home, and most said they'd pay for this convenient service. It s a game-changer for supporting cats with chronic conditions in a low-stress, familiar ...
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June 3, 2025 To satisfy the seafood needs of billions of people, offering them access to a more biodiverse array of fish creates opportunities to mix-and-match species to obtain better nutrition from smaller portions of ...
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June 3, 2025 Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be triggered with very little ocean warming above present-day, leading to a devastating four meters of global sea level rise to play out over hundreds of years according to a new study. However, the authors emphasize that immediate actions to reduce emissions could still avoid a catastrophic ...
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June 2, 2025 New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to associated environmental stressors arising from global climate ...
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June 2, 2025 Researchers have recreated the world's oldest synthetic pigment, called Egyptian blue, which was used in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ...
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May 28, 2025 A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every mountain peak has an endemic species. This suggests that in unsampled areas there are likely to be additional novel diversity, waiting to be ...
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