The World Health Organization believes the spread of radiation from a quake-crippled nuclear plant in Japan remains limited and appears to pose no immediate risk to health, the WHO’s China representative said on Friday. “At this point, there is still no evidence that there’s been significant radiation spread beyond the immediate zone of the reactors…

Birds are different from human beings obviously. Birds have been known to fly into objects and knock themselves out. Why does this happen? A sensory ecology framework is used in a new research study to seek to assess why flying birds collide with prominent structures, such as power lines, fences, communication masts, wind turbines and…

PEKANBARU – A suspected tiger smuggler has been arrested in West Sumatra, Indonesia, following a three-day investigation by the Natural Resource Conservation Agency in Riau and West Sumatra Province (BKSDA), with support from WWF Indonesia’s Tiger Protection Unit. The investigation also resulted in the seizure of the skin of an adult male tiger believed to…

[MONTEVIDEO] Banana peels can be used to purify drinking water contaminated with toxic heavy metals such as copper and lead, according to a study. Researchers from the Bioscience Institute at Botucatu, Brazil, said that the skins can outperform even conventional purifiers such as aluminium oxide, cellulose and silica. These have potentially toxic side effects and…

(Reuters) – New worries about a New York nuclear plant’s vulnerability to earthquakes could hand the state’s governor an opportunity to try to close the plant, but New York City’s huge power needs could stall any such moves. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has long been a critic of the Indian Point plant owned…

There are zillions of products and chemicals in the world. Some are obviously toxic. Others are more subtle or simply unknown because they were never studied. Study is expensive and time consuming. Several federal agencies have unveiled a new high-speed robot screening system that will test 10,000 different chemicals for potential toxicity. The system marks…

Normally, the abundance of a wild species is hailed as a sign of a healthy ecosystem. However, that is not the case for the lionfish, an invasive species which is rapidly multiplying in the waters of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the US Eastern Seaboard. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), it is…

Government plans to build a road through Serengeti National Park came up against more opposition this week as the Tanzanian Association of Tour Operators (Tato) came out against the project, reports The Citizen. Tato, described as powerful local lobby group by the Tanzanian media, stated that the road would hurt tourism and urged the government…

(Reuters) – Low concentrations of radioactive particles are heading eastwards from Japan’s disaster-hit nuclear power plant and are expected to reach North America in days, a Swedish official said on Thursday. Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defense Research Institute, a government agency, was citing data from a network of international monitoring stations…

Unusually low temperatures in the Arctic ozone layer have recently initiated massive ozone depletion. The Arctic appears to be heading for a record loss of this trace gas that protects the Earth’s surface against ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This result has been found by measurements carried out by an international network of over 30…