That pigs are smart and sensitive is not in doubt. How can we justify continuing to kill them for food?

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Submitted on July 29th 2017 by ckshenn with 1 comments

Flowers have long held the fascination of humans, and European botanists have now determined what the single ancestor of all modern flowers looked like.

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Submitted on August 2nd 2017 by kxh with 1 comments

There is a common assumption that those plants which delight human eyes will also be the most attractive for bees. Two scientists at the University of Sussex can offer a more empirical take.

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Submitted on July 28th 2017 by LisMan

Researchers have found a way to reliably remove disease-causing mutations from human embryos, an achievement sure to renew concerns over so-called designer babies.

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Submitted on August 2nd 2017 by wondaROY

Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.

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Submitted on July 30th 2017 by kxh

Summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades.

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Submitted on July 28th 2017 by baron778

Amazingly, there are 7,099 languages still spoken in the world today.

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Submitted on August 2nd 2017 by LisMan with 1 comments and with 1 Related Links:

1. The Endangered Languages Project Added by LisMan on August 2nd 2017.

A new book collects historical images of cactuses and succulents that were tracked down in the wild by devoted photographer-explorers.

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Submitted on July 29th 2017 by gladsdotter

I shot this a bit over a week ago during a trip to Rhode Island; I didn't realize that this picture came out quite so well until I came back home.

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Submitted on August 2nd 2017 by Jourdy288 with 4 comments

Let's take the VII from Londinium to Letocetum.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by junglman

Climate pessimism has had quite a run lately. Maybe we need to redefine what optimism means.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by Apolatia

The Mediterranean - Europe's summer playground - is being trashed by accumulating plastic waste. Research suggests about 3,000 tons of the material is floating on the surface, with more added every year. And because the sea is almost fully enclosed the plastic is trapped - taking decades to break down. Not only are tourists swimming in the debris, marine creatures are mistaking it for food.

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Submitted on July 28th 2017 by rawlings

In defence of 'cryptozoologists': we have a lot to learn from their curiosity and sense of wonder.

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Submitted on July 30th 2017 by archmagician with 1 comments

Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun's rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet. Backers say the risky, often expensive projects are urgently needed to find ways of meeting the goals of the Paris climate deal to curb global warming that researchers blame for causing more heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels.

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Submitted on July 27th 2017 by zritic with 1 comments

The world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opened in Switzerland on Sunday, a ribbon-thin span nearly a third of a mile long that challenges hikers to proceed in places at nearly 28 stories above ground. Officials in the south of Switzerland unveiled the bridge after just 10 weeks of construction. It measures 1,620 feet long and rises as high as 278 feet above the Grabengufer ravine. The span is also impossibly narrow, at just 25.6 inches wide.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by darvinhg

The European Court of Justice had ordered a stop to logging in Bialowieza Forest, a Unesco World Heritage site.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by LisMan with 1 Related Links:

1. Poland continues logging venerable state forest, defying EU reforms Added by LisMan on July 31st 2017.

After just three weeks of development, worker bees emerge from their brood cells fully formed, flying out to begin supporting their hive. In a stunning high-definition time-lapse video, the US photographer Anand Varma follows the bee's stages of development from egg to larvae to pupa to worker bee, with a sprightly score to match the insects’ rather startling journey into being.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by archmagician

A city is a complicated, self-organizing system. In recovery efforts, there’s no one body in charge.

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Submitted on July 28th 2017 by gladsdotter

A largely unstudied area of the South Pacific Ocean is home to a newly discovered garbage patch that researchers estimate to be 1.5 times the size of Texas, according to a recent study. This new patch found in the ocean's gyre is estimated to be as large as 965,000 square miles, reports ResearchGate. Gyres are areas of the ocean that are surrounded by circulating currents. They help circulate ocean waters around the world, but they also suck in pollution.

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Submitted on July 31st 2017 by jedlicka

Follow the shadow of the moon as it completely blocks out the sun on Aug. 21, moving along a 3,000-mile path from Oregon’s Pacific coast to the eastern shore of South Carolina.

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Submitted on July 29th 2017 by gladsdotter with 1 Related Links:

1. More maps Added by leweb on July 30th 2017.