Stranded Whale Euthanized in Long Island Bay
Posted on June 2, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 429 words
| Patria Henriques
A humpback whale that stranded on a sandbar in Moriches Bay in Long Island, New York, on Nov. 20 was euthanized on Wednesday (Nov. 23), after attempts to move the animal into deeper waters were unsuccessful.
Marine biologists and veterinarians evaluated the whale's condition and determined that the animal was too badly injured to survive.
"It was thin, limp, weak, minimally responsive, [and] had evidence of neurological abnormalities and extensive skin injuries with evidence of infection,"
[Read More]Cloning Contest Seeks Worthiest UK Dog
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 823 words
| Patria Henriques
Puppy lovers in the United Kingdom may soon get a chance to extend their dog years, thanks to an odd new contest: A South Korean company wants to clone the most beloved U.K. pooch — again raising ethical questions about the practice of pet cloning.
Headed by a former stem-cell researcher named Woo-Suk Hwang, the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation has been cloning dogs and other animals for years, mostly for U.
[Read More]FDA Approves Meningitis B Vaccine
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 435 words
| Arica Deslauriers
The first vaccine designed to prevent a common type of bacterial meningitis has been approved for use in the United States.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that it has approved Trumenba, which is made by a subsidiary of Pfizer called Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. The vaccine is intended to prevent a life-threatening disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B. This type of bacteria has been blamed for recent meningitis outbreaks on college campuses, including an outbreak at Princeton University that was linked to the death of a young woman in Philadelphia.
[Read More]Here's how to read election news like a scientist
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 6 minutes
| 1227 words
| Arica Deslauriers
To understand politics, it helps to think like a scientist.
Campaign coverage of the upcoming presidential election is everywhere, with various polls showing this or that candidate on top. There are national approval ratings, local approval ratings, polls about primary candidates, polls about issues, polls about electability. All of these numbers add up to a cacophony of information that can be difficult to make heads or tails of. In that way, scientists say, they're a lot like the data a researcher might collect: The individual polls mostly aren't too useful on their own, without context.
[Read More]In Photos: The World's Largest Display of Origami Elephants
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 363 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Origami elephantsThe Bronx Zoo has officially amassed the largest collection of origami elephants in the world -- 78,564 to be precise. The origami elephants were sent in by people from around the world to raise awareness about the issue of elephant poaching.
A sea of elephantsA red origami elephant stands out from a pack of grey ones. The origami elephants were folded as part of the 96 elephants campaign to raise awareness about poaching.
[Read More]Incredible Tech: How to Display a 2-Ton Dinosaur
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 851 words
| Trudie Dory
The buzz of an air scribe against sandstone makes your hand tingle within minutes. The tool looks like a bulbous metal pen and sounds like a tattoo gun. But it's actually a revolutionary way to coax fossilized bone, ever so carefully, out of rock.
Air scribes are relatively new to the paleontological scene, and they're an example of how the technology of the field has progressed. A century ago, a paleontologist preparing a fossil for study and display had only teeny chisels and brushes for help.
[Read More]Light Seems to Pass through Solid Metal
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 563 words
| Fernande Dalal
Researchers directing a special type of light at metal poked with holes in irregular patterns recently discovered that all the light behaved like a liquid and fell across the metal to find its way through the escape holes.
That means the light was acting pretty weird. Picture shining a flashlight at your kitchen colander. While some of the light from the flashlight will travel through its holes, the solid part of the colander will keep much of the light from shining through.
[Read More]Photos: Modeling Scorpions' Lairs in 3D
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 287 words
| Patria Henriques
Burrow builderA scorpion, Scorpio palmatus, photographed in the Negev desert in Israel. Researchers examined burrow architecture of three scorpion species in Israel and Namibia, to understand how they use their underground hideaways to help them survive harsh desert conditions.
Read the full story on these tiny architects and their underground lairs
Burrow entranceThe entrance to a burrow dug by a scorpion, Scorpio palmatus, in the Negev desert in Israel.
[Read More]Rare White Rhino Killed for Coveted Horn at French Zoo
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 610 words
| Patria Henriques
A 4-year-old white rhinoceros who was inside an enclosure in a French zoo has been killed for his horn.
"Vince," a young rhino at the Thoiry Zoo, was found shot in the head, and one large horn had been sawed off by a chainsaw, according to the Guardian. The animal's second, smaller horn was cut but not fully removed, which suggests that the poachers left in a hurry, police told reporters.
[Read More]San Francisco's Airport is Sinking into the Bay
Posted on June 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 438 words
| Trudie Dory
Large swaths of the Bay Area, including the region's biggest airport, are sinking. As a result, the area could face catastrophic flooding when sea levels rise, new research suggests.
The findings suggest the Bay Area could be even more prone to flooding than current emergency hazard maps or models of climate change predict.
"The ground goes down, sea level comes up, and flood waters go much farther inland than either change would produce by itself,"
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