#natural-explanations

#natural-explanations

Hundreds of fossils uncovered in southern China's province of Yunnan reveal that at least some of the life-forms scientists had thought arose in the Cambrian period were alive and thriving millions of years earlier, in an era known as the Ediacaran period.

A study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley has found that ethanol is surprisingly common in floral nectar, the sugary fuel that keeps pollinators alive. Yeast feeding on those sugars produces trace amounts of alcohol, and in this study, it showed up in 26 of the 29 plant species sampled.

During major floods, thousands of tiny fish convene at Luvilombo Falls in the upper Congo River Basin to undertake a peculiar vertical migration, described for the first time today in Scientific Reports.

'Our results show that the next 20 years are critical,' lead author Dr Rob Cooke told the Daily Mail. 'By around 2050, we reach a point where the choices we make on emissions and land use will largely determine whether Britain moves towards a much more degraded or a much more nature‑positive future.'

Somebody sent to this world to try to give people hope in dark times, because without hope, we fall into apathy and do nothing, and in the dark times that we are living in now, if people don't have hope, we're doomed. How can we bring little children into this dark world we've created and let them be surrounded by people who've given up?

Few transformations in the history of life have been as extreme as the embrace of the ocean by seagrass. Like whales and dolphins, modern seagrasses descend from land-dwelling ancestors.

Because we're homeotherms, we assume all mammals work the way we do. But in recent years, as improvements in technology allowed researchers to more easily track small animals and their metabolisms in the wild, we're starting to find a lot more weirdness.

London is the only place in the UK where you can find scorpions, snakes, turtles, seals, peacocks, falcons all in one city and not London zoo. Step outside and you will encounter a patchwork of writhing, buzzing, bubbling urban microclimates. Sam Davenport, the director of nature recovery at the London Wildlife Trust, emphasises the sheer variation in habitats that you find in UK cities, which creates an amazing mosaic of wildlife.

In a naturalistic rendition of David vs. Goliath, a 28-pound Reeves's muntjac named Tata, a small deer species native to Asia, took on Maruśka, a 1.7-ton female rhinoceros, in a fierce head-to-head at the Wroclaw Zoo in Poland. A video that's gone viral on social media shows the miniature deer fiercely standing its ground and charging at the far more massive rhino, clashing into its horn-tipped snout with tiny antlers.

The mirror spider can rapidly shift a patchwork of minuscule reflective plates underneath its abdomen's outer surface, altering the pattern of mirrorlike flashes. This uncommon display comes from common building blocks: Similar tilelike arrangements of plates and soft joints appear throughout the tree of life, from turtle shells to tropical fruit peels. Researchers have now compiled 100 examples of this pattern across animals, plants, microbes and viruses, which they describe in PNAS Nexus.

Ever wondered what your Instagram feed says about your inner animal? Or why you scroll through TikTok like a cautious deer while your friend posts boldly like a roaring lion? The way we use social media mirrors the same personality traits scientists have found in animals for decades. Just as personality traits like neuroticism, agreeableness and extraversion have been studied in animals, these same traits shape how we present ourselves online.

Less than a year ago, United States company Colossal Biosciences announced it had "resurrected" the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that had been extinct for 10,000 years. Within two days of Colossal's announcement, the Interior Secretary of the US, Doug Burgum, used the idea of resurrection to justify weakening environmental protection laws: "pick your favourite species and call up Colossal". His reasoning appeared to confirm critics' fears about de-extinction technology. If we can bring any species back, why protect them to begin with?

When British author Karen Armstrong won the TED prize in 2008, she used the money to convene a group of religious thinkers from a wide range of faiths to craft an updated version of the Golden Rule for the 21st century. What emerged was the Charter for Compassion, which calls on people around the world "to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect."

Wooden objects carrying the marks of carving and use could be the oldest wooden tools ever found. Researchers dated the artefacts, found in what is now Greece, to 430,000 years ago - and suggest they might have been made by early Neanderthals or their ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis. A separate study describes 480,000-old flint-knapping tools made from antler and elephant bone, from what is now the United Kingdom.

Which animals came first? For more than a century, most evidence suggested that sponges, immobile filter-feeders that lack muscles, neurons and other specialized tissues, were the first animal lineages to emerge. Then, in 2008, a genomic study pointed to a head-scratching rival: dazzling, translucent predators called comb jellies, or ctenophores, with nerves, muscles and other sophisticated features. That single study ignited a debate that has raged for nearly 20 years, sparking fierce arguments about how complexity evolved in animals.

When the category-5 storm Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in October, its path crossed communities that had varying levels of preparedness. Many with maintained coastal protections, upgraded drainage and reliable early-warning systems had power and water restored in days. Others were immobilized for weeks.

The world spends 30 times more money destroying nature than protecting it. That's according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that exposes a massive gulf between so-called "harmful investments" and financing that promotes nature preservation. The global environment agency's latest "State of Finance for Nature" (SNF) report is calling to phase out the US$7.3 trillion (6.2 trillion) in global investments that damage nature including into high-emissions energy infrastructure and manufacturing, for example.

The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health of rivers that feed California's largest estuary is generating heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento, as state officials try to gain support for a plan that has been years in the making. "I am passionate that this is the pathway to recover fish," said state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. "This is the paradigm we need: collaborative, adaptive management versus conflict and litigation."