Environment Articles

For decades scientists lamented about the demise of the gorgeous Pinocchio lizard. Now it turns out that the reptile, while still rare, is very much around in the cloud forests of South America, an area known for its stunning flora and fauna....

For many years now, Dutch architect Ramon Knoester has been harboring a dream - To recycle the plastic that is polluting our oceans and transform it into a beautiful inhabitable island. He began his work in earnest in 2010, after receiving a grant from the Netherlands government. While it has taken a few years, and he has had to make some tweaks to his original plan, it seems as though this rather impossible sounding idea may actually become a reality, in the very near future....

The fact that kids seem to have an inordinate amount of energy is indisputable. What if this energy could somehow be harnessed and turned into electricity? That was a question that Ben Markham, a retired Vice President of Engineering at ExxonMobil asked himself a few years ago. The result? Empower Playgrounds Inc., non-profit company that has transformed the lives of thousands of young kids in Ghana with a simple yet brilliant idea!...

If you think conning or swindling others is something that was invented by the amazingly bright human mind, think again - the cuckoo finch has been doing it for centuries and their con is much more convincing than anything humans have been able to pull, because it entails tricking other birds into raising their chicks!...

Patrick a 23-year-old Western lowland gorilla has been a fixture at the Dallas Zoo since 1995. And while the gregarious male seems to love humans, his attitude toward his fellow gorillas especially females, has left much to be desired, leaving officials with no choice but to ship him off to a new home....

With plans underway to lasso asteroids, establish settlements on Mars and send tourists out for quick jaunts, the fact that our future lies in Space is indisputable. However some of these dreams will be left unfulfilled unless we do something about all the junk we have abandoned in Space in the last 55 years....

Just as we humans are feeling all smug about our abilities to broadcast our daily schedule and plans via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, comes news that we are no pioneers - Male orangutans have been doing it for years, without requiring computers or sophisticated technology....

While we humans need every organ of our body, animals seem to adapt and even thrive when they are missing body parts that we consider crucial to survive - There is the Borneo frog that breathes without lungs, the ice fish that has no hemoglobin and now, an earless frog that can hear perfectly....

How cool would it be if instead of learning about exotic animals like Patagonian maras (large rodents that resemble rabbits) and bearded dragons from textbooks you could do it by touching, feeling and maybe even breeding them? That is how the students fortunate enough to be taught by Michael Bechtel at Saydel High School in Des Moines, Iowa experienced biology for many years....