Scientists have turned discarded fish scales into a plastic-like material that can break down naturally in soil, Cyclo. Plas 2, the material is made from collagen fish scales and chitosan, creating a thin, flexible, translucent film. In tests, the material began breaking down after two weeks and biodegraded by the end of eight weeks. It…
Image: European Space Agency When a star strays too close to a supermassive black hole, gravity can tear the star apart in what astronomers call a tidal disruption event. Some of the debris gets swallowed, while the rest can be blasted back out in powerful jets, sometimes months or years after the star is destroyed….
For much of the 20th century, the Iberian lynx was disappearing from the Spanish landscape. By 2001, only 62 mature animals were recorded, leaving one of Europe’s most distinctive wild cats perilously close to extinction. Since then, a sustained conservation programme has altered its trajectory. Reintroductions, captive breeding, habitat restoration and efforts to protect its…
Deep in Ethiopia’s Harenna Forest, a snake that initially appeared familiar has turned out to represent a species new to science. The discovery began with a juvenile female collected from the forest and kept for observation as she grew. The appearance gradually raised questions about whether she belonged to a known egg-eating snake. What followed…
A Leopardus tilcayo cat walks at the Senda Verde animal refuge in the Yungas region, Bolivia (Picture credit: Reuters) Scientists have identified a previously unknown species of wild cat in Bolivia’s cloud forests, marking the first time in more than a century that a new living cat species has been formally named and described.The cat,…
Representative Image of diverse plasticine models resembling prey, under scrutiny by researchers assessing animal interactions (AI Generated Image) For years, ecologists have used soft plasticine models shaped like caterpillars, fruit, bird eggs, snakes and frogs to study interactions between predators and their potential prey. The idea is simple: leave the models in a natural habitat,…
Japanese macaque. Image Credit: Wikipedia The relocation of 38 macaques from Japan to Austria in 1996 created a unique opportunity to follow a primate population from its first days in a new environment. The animals were moved from the Minoo-H group in Osaka Prefecture to Affenberg Landskron, a forested enclosure in southern Austria. Over the…
Representative Image of a Swiss glacier covered with sheep’s wool, showcasing environmental innovation in melting ice protection (AI Generated Image) As Switzerland’s glaciers continue to lose ice, researchers are testing an unusual material that could offer a more environmentally friendly way to slow melting in small, protected areas: sheep’s wool. The “Keep It Wool” project,…
Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) at Alibel Tortoise Park, Mahe, Seychelles (2025). Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons Madagascar began rebuilding a giant tortoise population in 2018 with only 12 founder animals at the Anjajavy Reserve in the north-west of the country. The small group faced an important challenge because a population started from so few animals…
For generations, vultures were part of the everyday landscape across India. They gathered around cattle carcasses, circled above rubbish dumps and cleared away animal remains before they had time to linger. Then, in the 1990s, their numbers began to collapse at an extraordinary rate. A veterinary painkiller called diclofenac was eventually identified as a major…
In 1986, captive-bred bearded vultures began returning to the Alps after the species had disappeared from the mountain range decades earlier. The reintroduction programme released young birds at sites across the region, with the first successful wild breeding recorded in 1997. By 2021, researchers estimated that 344 bearded vultures were living in the Alps, including…
The Moon is covered with impact marks from ancient collisions, including some of the largest craters in the Solar System. One enormous lunar basin stretches more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) across. The Moon has been taking hits for billions of years, but one of its newest scars managed to escape notice entirely. An asteroid…
