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☆ Scientists found the stray dogs of Chernobyl are 'genetically distinct' 40 years after the massive radiation leak
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Scientists compared dogs living within the Chernobyl power plant and those living farther away. Researchers found the Chernobyl dogs to be "genetically distinct." When the power plant in Ukraine exploded in 1986, residents who evacuated the area had to leave their pets behind. While authorities at the time culled many animals to stop contamination from spreading, clean-up workers cared for some dogs, according to the New Scientist. The Chernobyl Dog Research Initiative — which provides veterinary care — estimates that more than 800 feral dogs are living in the area.

☆ Canadian 'super pigs' set to spread disease and damage the environment in the US, expert warns
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The expert called for a campaign to cut down the size of the feral pig population. These pigs are a cross between wild boars and domestic pigs, and were bred in Canada in the 1980s to diversify agriculture. The size and intelligence of the Canadian pigs has helped them survive the tough Canadian winters, and they can burrow tunnel ls into the snow, evading predators and freezing conditions, according to report. An expert told Fox News that the pigs can carry diseases transferable to humans, such as E. coli and hepatitis, and can devastate the environment. Brook called for a campaign to cut down the size of the Canadian pig population before they cause damage in the US.

☆ Schoolgirl feeds feral cats in Ukraine's rubble
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BORODIANKA, Ukraine, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Eleven-year-old Veronika Krasevych crouched down in the rubble near the ruins of her home in northern Ukraine, holding out a sachet of food to two ragged cats at her feet. "I wanted to feed him and then I saw all the other cats here. "I look for stray cats to make sure they have food. I even know where they live," said Veronika, wearing a woolly hat decorated with a cat's nose and whiskers. After her cat got lost during the attack on her building, Veronika comes every day and feeds stray cats in the same place.

☆ In Texas, hunters shoot feral pigs from helicopters
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Evan Garcia | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRYAN, Texas, Feb 3 (Reuters) - On a bitterly cold January morning, a helicopter soars above central Texas farmland. The four passengers hanging outside the aircraft are hunting - going after feral hogs, an invasive species in the southeastern United States. First introduced to North America by early explorers hundreds of years ago, feral hogs can wreak havoc on agriculture, tearing up soil and eating plants. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, an estimated 6.9 million feral hogs roamed the United States in 2016 – with more than one-third of that population, 2.6 million hogs, living in Texas. For hunters like Mitchell Birkett, a 21-year-old Texas A&M University student, going after the hogs was a chance to combine pleasure with purpose.

She was 11, about his age, and both had little sisters who sold Girl Scout cookies and were adorable sprites who also drove them batty. They were at an age when little sisters could get in the way, no matter how cute they looked in a Girl Scout sash. Sadie could unload Girl Scout cookies as if she were giving away gold — she sold 1,400 boxes in 2022. And why was Sadie selling all those Girl Scout cookies? Their moms would bring them each to New York, along with their little sisters, in June.

☆ What Guns Did to My Childhood
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Mitchell S. Jackson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +10 min

Isn’t a part of childhood feeling insecure and divining ways to resolve those feelings or else abide them? From Mitchell S. JacksonThe presence of gangs — mind you, a predictable symptom of poverty and neglect — led to the prevalence of guns that shaped much of the normal childhood maturing around me as a kid. It surprises me little to none that Black boys are the likeliest to die by guns. These guns alter their lives in significant ways, not in the least by nullifying the childhood grace of feeling the greatest distance from death. Amen, I’ve never had to sit him down for a stern talk on guns or the violence and grieving they reap.

☆ How We Turned Pigeons Into Pests
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Bethany Brookshire | Photographs Lucia Buricelli | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Today city-dwellers tend to think of pigeons as “rats with wings”—pests that are good for nothing but tarnishing buildings and spreading disease. In fact, the pigeons strutting the streets today are descendants of birds that were raised in dovecotes by human beings who found them very useful. The reason why feral pigeons thrive in cities today is that we bred them for skills that serve them well in an urban environment. Wild pigeons love nesting in cliff faces, leaving home daily to forage on grains and seeds and returning home at night. Even before humans started domesticating the birds on purpose, they were probably following farming settlements, says Will Smith, a zoologist at the University of Oxford who studies feral pigeons.

For decades, searching for such hard-to-reach plants and collecting samples was carried out by intrepid botanists who rappelled by rope down dangerous cliffs to hunt for what was lost. Now, we may have a little more time before extinction.”DIRE SITUATIONToday, two in five plant species globally are threatened with extinction. Kauai has 250 plant species that can be found only on the island. To protect species in the long run, botanists need to collect samples — seeds and genetic material — which they can cultivate in greenhouse nurseries. They might even use drones to bomb down collected seeds, packing them into sticky fertilizer balls that can adhere to steep cliffs.

Economic worries have made this holiday season particularly stressful for some. The holiday season can bring out the absolute worst in some kids. Some parents welcome that break from structure, and that’s OK. “Parents get to decide what works and what doesn’t work with their family,” Dr. Naumburg said. “Gratitude and savoring are the opposite.”Dr. Kurtz recommended starting a simple gratitude practice early in the holiday season. As the holidays unfold, make an effort to savor the season, Dr. Kurtz said.

☆ Tasmanian tiger: Lost remains of last thylacine found hiding in plain sight
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Jessie Yeung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —For decades, nobody knew where the remains of the last thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, were located. It turns out they were hiding in plain sight – at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), in the Australian island state, where they had been unidentified for more than 80 years. That meant researchers and staff at the museum were wholly unaware of the significance of the thylacine in their collection. A thylacine displayed at the Australian Museum in Sydney, Australia, in 2002. The remains are now on display in the museum’s thylacine gallery for public viewing.

☆ Jason Momoa wanted to take his pet pig to the 'Slumberland' premiere
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Marianne Garvey | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Jason Momoa’s real-life pet pig didn’t end up making it to the premiere of “Slumberland.”The actor attended the premiere in Los Angeles on Wednesday, where he told Entertainment Tonight that though he had hoped to bring the pig to the event, his little pig stayed home. He’s a wild boar, so I couldn’t bring him with me,” said Momoa, who instead posed on the red carpet with a stuffed animal. “I think it would’ve been pretty gnarly, though.”In “Slumberland,” Momoa plays an eccentric outlaw named Flip, who guides young orphan (Marlow Barkley) and her toy-pig-turned-real through a world of dreams. Momoa revealed earlier this month that he had adopted a pig after filming with it. Momoa was at last updating picking a name for his new pet – torn between Lau Lau and Manapua.

☆ Copycatting lawsuits hit new media as TikTok creators, game designers and Instagrammers are sued
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Alexandra Peers | Cnn Business | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

A series of hot-button lawsuits have linked all those unlikely creators and platforms in litigation that goes as high as the US Supreme Court. The litigation deals with issues of intellectual property, copyright infringement and fair use in a rapidly changing new-media landscape. She won, but not much: $3,750, because the court ruled that, though her copyright had been violated, her tattoos didn’t impact game profits. It was a huge hit on TikTok, in part because the duo invited feedback and participation, making it a crowd-sourced artwork. But when the creators took their show on the road and sold tickets, Netflix sued.

☆ A new study confirms it: The pandemic turned us all into jerks
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Graceless under pressureTo see how the pandemic affected us, researchers looked at the so-called Big Five personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness. But the new study found a surprising shift during the pandemic — roughly equivalent to what they'd expect from 10 years of life, not two. During the first months of the pandemic, Sutin's team found little personality change. "The only thing that went wrong," says Brent Roberts, a psychologist and expert in personality change at the University of Illinois, "is the goddamn pandemic kept going." For some Americans, the most stressful thing about the pandemic was experts telling them they should help people they don't like.

☆ Water's edge: the crisis of rising sea levels
▼ + stars: | 2014-09-04 | by ( Reuters Graphic | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +20 min

But sea levels have been rising for 100 years in Baltimore.”ROCKET SCIENCEThe irony is evident at Wallops Flight Facility. Yet this bastion of climate research has been slow to apply the science of sea level rise to its own operations. Reviewers from state and federal agencies criticized the 348-page document for failing to adequately take rising sea levels into account in the project design and impact, or to temper future plans for expansion. Joshua Bundick, Wallops’s environmental planning manager, explained that he distilled the issues “down to only the highest points,” and sea level rise wasn’t among them. The cost to American taxpayers of repeated destruction of the parking lot and causeway from rising sea levels would only increase, Fish and Wildlife officials said.

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