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Extinction

The Ten Best Science Books of 2019

New titles explore the workings of the human body, the lives of animals big and small, the past and future of planet earth and how it’s all connected

An image from Birds of America by John James Audubon depicting the Great Auk.

Humans May Be Solely to Blame for the Great Auk’s Extinction

A new study suggests that the flightless birds were not declining due to environmental changes when humans began to hunt them in large numbers

Iman died of cancer on November 23 at a sanctuary in Borneo.

Sumatran Rhinos Are Now Extinct in Malaysia

Iman, a 25-year-old female and the last Sumatran rhino in the country, died on Saturday

The study authors write: "We posit here that artificial light at night is another important – but often overlooked – bringer of the insect apocalypse."

New Research

The Devastating Role of Light Pollution in the ‘Insect Apocalypse’

A new study shows excess outdoor light is impacting how insects hunt, mate and make them more vulnerable to predators

City noise can throw off a bat's ability to use echolocation.

Noise Pollution Impacts a Wide Range of Species, Study Finds

From tiny insects to large marine mammals, animals are affected by noise in ways that might threaten their survival

Cool Finds

Researchers Discover Secret Breeding Ground of World’s Most Endangered Crocodile

Over 100 recently-hatched gharials were found deep in Nepal’s Bardia National Park

A humpback whale basks in sunlight at the ocean's surface in Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Dominican Republic.

South Atlantic Humpback Whales Have Rebounded From the Brink of Extinction

A new study estimates that the group’s population has grown from 440 individuals in 1958 to nearly 25,000 today

A two-month-old filefish collected in the survey surrounded by plastic bits.

New Research

Newly Identified Fish Nurseries Are Choked With Plastic

Larval fish congregate in surface slicks, which contain plankton—and 126 times more plastic than surrounding waters

A steppe eagle with an SMS tracker attached.

Trending Today

Text Messages Sent by Roaming Eagles Bankrupt Scientific Study

A steppe eagle named Min spent months out of range before reappearing in Iran and sending hundreds of expensive SMS texts

CGI rendering of ancient Loxolophus mammal taken from the PBS NOVA special, Rise of the Mammals. In this recreation, Loxolophus scavenges for food in the palm dominated forests found within the first 300,000 years after the dinosaur extinction.

Fossil Site Reveals How Mammals Thrived After the Death of the Dinosaurs

Recent discoveries highlight how mammals lived before and after the asteroid impact that triggered the world’s fifth mass extinction

Trending Today

Why Did Thousands of Rubber Bands Show Up on an Uninhabited Cornish Island?

Nesting gulls have likely been trying to feed the bands found in nearby flower fields to their chicks for decades

Birds are considered an indicator species, representing the health of entire ecosystems.

North America Has Lost Nearly 3 Billion Birds Since 1970

The staggering population loss of 29 percent of North American birds could signal an ecological crisis

Birds given doses of a common pesticide lost significant body mass, fat stores

Common Pesticides Delay Songbird Migration, Trigger Significant Weight Loss

Within six hours of ingesting a high dose of pesticide, sparrows lost six percent of their body weight and 17 percent of their fat stores

An artist's depiction of an asteroid impacting the Earth.

What Happened the Day a Giant, Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit the Earth

Using rock cores from Chicxulub crater, geologists piece together a new timeline of the destruction that followed impact

Europe's cave bear population started crashing around 40,000 years ago—roughly the time period when modern humans arrived on the continent

Ice Age Humans Likely Played Major Role in Cave Bears’ Extinction

Researchers have long debated whether human activity or climate change precipitated the species’ demise

A Human-Sized Penguin Once Waddled Through New Zealand

The leg bones of Crossvallia waiparensis suggest it was more than five feet tall and weighed up to 176 pounds

Trending Today

A Crashed Spacecraft Might Have Put Earth’s Most Indestructible Organisms on the Moon

The microscopic tardigrades were part of a lunar library sent aboard the Beresheet lander that crashed last April

Neonics are responsible for 92 percent of the increase in U.S. agricultural toxicity

Toxic Pesticides Are Driving Insect ‘Apocalypse’ in the U.S., Study Warns

The country’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to insects than it was 25 years ago

Saber-toothed cats likely ambushed plant-eating prey in forests, not open grassland

Fossils Reveal Why Coyotes Outlived Saber-Toothed Cats

Contrary to popular belief, carnivorous cats and canines probably didn’t hunt the same limited pool of prey

Dead vaquita entangled in a gillnet set for Totoaba

There Are ‘At Most’ 19 Vaquitas Left in the Wild

An alarming new study documents the continued decline of the critically endangered porpoise—but it may still be possible to save the species

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