Science

A key step on the way to a mandatory Polar Code for ships operating in Arctic and Antarctic waters has been reached with the approval by the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the environmental provisions in the draft International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (the Polar Code), together with associated draft …

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials are closing another wolf hunting zone after closing two hunting zones on Sunday and another the week before. Only two grey wolf hunting zones remain open.

A recent discovery has shown that the Earth’s magnetic reversal could happen much quicker than had been expected. US scientists say the North and South poles can swap their positions in less than a century, which would carry some danger for humans.

An “innovative” highway overpass covered in plants could be a path for mountain lions to cross the 101 freeway that splits California’s Santa Monica Mountains, conservationists say.

New restrictions have made it difficult for scientists around the globe to collaborate with Canadian government scientists. In response, more than 800 scientists from 32 countries have signed a letter urging Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper to “remove excessive and burdensome restrictions and barriers to scientific communication and collaboration faced by Canadian government scientists.” The letter was published as an advertisement today in the …

One of the last northern white rhinos in the world died in Kenya this weekend, leaving the species on the brink of extinction, with only six animals left.

A writer for Slate magazine who spent four months in a simulation that attempted to replicate life on Mars says the first visitors to the Red Planet should be women.

A woman paddled to safety after a 6-foot shark bit her outrigger canoe three miles from the Santa Barbara Harbor, authorities said. The woman told officials she was paddling in her single-person canoe about 3:50 p.m. Sunday when the shark struck.

Researchers have traced the history of vertebrate sexual intercourse to an ancient armoured fish that lived in Scottish lochs 385 million years ago. The first creatures to use this form of reproduction were the first jawed fish, called Microbrachius dicki.

Some day, the dead blue whale will be the centrepiece of a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit worthy of her antemortem status: She was once a queen of the deep. But for now, the indignities visited upon Lollipop, as the dead whale is affectionately known to those who flensed her massive skeleton in Newfoundland last May, continue to pile up. This …

Remember the puppy that was wearing a spider costume and starred in a mock horror film? Now there’s a puppy-sized spider that is making the Internet shudder all over the world.