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Species: Cyanea capillata Habitat: cold waters of the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific Oceans A venomous medusa-like beast as long as a blue whale has emerged as an unlikely defender of the world's oceans. Walnut killer (Image: Scott Leslie/Getty) The lion's mane jellyfish is the largest jellyfish known and a contender for the longest [...]

In putting conservation into practice, we often cause great suffering to animals. Marc Bekoff argues that we need a new ethical perspective Could a compassionate approach have worked just as well? (Image: Sumio Harada/Getty) BLACK-footed ferrets were once widespread across the Great Plains and the inter-mountain west of North America. Then decades of habitat loss [...]

Take sunlight, add water, and there you have it: free energy. Plants have been doing this for quite some time, splitting water's hydrogen apart from its oxygen, but our efforts to turn water into a source of free hydrogen fuel by mimicking them have borne no fruit. The problem is that splitting water takes more [...]

Horseshoe crabs congregate annually at Delaware Bay. (Credit: Greg Breese, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2010) — A distinct decline in horseshoe crab numbers has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study that used genomics to assess historical trends in population [...]

The theory that the great beasts living in North America 13,000 years ago were killed off by a space impact can now be discounted, a new study claims. North American mystery: At least 17 groups of large animals die out in a very short space of time. Mammoths, giant bears, big cats and the like [...]

Bryozoans take many different forms, some of which are shown here. All of these occur on Southern Ocean continental shelves. (Credit: Image courtesy of British Antarctic Survey) ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2010) — A tiny marine filter-feeder, that anchors itself to the sea bed, offers new clues to scientists studying the stability of the West Antarctic [...]

Whale shark. UIC researcher Jennifer Schmidt, associate professor of biological sciences, studies the large fish. (Credit: Jennifer Schmidt; Copyright University of Illinois Board of Trustees) ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2010) — How do female whale sharks meet their perfect mates and go on to produce offspring? While little is known about the reproductive behavior of these [...]

(Reuters) – Oil sands operations are polluting the Athabasca River system, researchers said on Monday, contradicting the Alberta government's assertions that toxins in the watershed are naturally occurring. In a study likely to add more fuel to the environmental battle over oil sands development, researchers said mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium are among the toxins [...]

WASHINGTON — A new study using laser pulses shot from satellites has found that the world's tallest forests are those along the Pacific Northwest coast. Though the findings shouldn't shock anyone who grew up in the region, they offer another indication of how important these ancient trees eventually could become. The temperate forests of Douglas [...]

This is a sparrow. (Credit: Griggio et al., BMC Evolutionary Biology) ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2010) — Less-pretty female house sparrows tend to lower their aim when selecting a mate. Addressing the lack of studies on condition-dependency of female mate choice, researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology found that female sparrows of [...]