Latest Biodiversity Stories

Carnegie Science Center Presents "Take a Hike: Backyard Biodiversity", a 45 Minute Live Theatric Science Show PITTSBURGH, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Carnegie Science Center educates children, youth, and families about science by connecting it to everyday life. Among the center's methods of educating audiences are its traveling science programs. To educate the public on the value of biodiversity, illustrate that value to humans, and demonstrate the need for its...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com A new study found that one in three animal species in poor countries are being threatened by the world's appetite for coffee and timber. Researchers from the University of Sydney spent five years tracking the world economy by evaluating over five billion supply chains connecting consumers to over 15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries. The team focused on the global trade of goods implicated in biodiversity like coffee, cocoa and lumber....

Michael Crumbliss Twenty years ago scientists met at the Earth Summit in Rio to examine the climate and ecology of the Earth and man’s impacts. Two decades later 17 prominent ecologists have released a paper summarizing the evidence of the 1000’s of ecological studies undertaken in since 1992. In short they decided that the evidence is overwhelming and consistent. The danger of a catastrophic ecological crash is looming and is far more immediate than previously believed. In some...

NEUHAUSEN AM RHEINFALL, Switzerland, June 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- First-ever live demonstration in Zurich on June 27, 2012 LifeWatch AG (SIX Swiss Exchange: LIFE), the leading wireless cardiac monitoring service and home sleep test provider in the U.S., announces today the launch of the world's first-of-its-kind healthcare solution Smartphone, allowing consumers self-operation of a wide range of highly valuable embedded medical sensors as well as wellness-related...

The palms that Vietnamese villagers weave into hats, many varieties of lichens that depend on the pristine environment of the Great Smoky Mountains, and small, shrub-like trees that are threatened by development and deforestation in Brazil were among the scores of plant and fungus species that scientists at The New York Botanical Garden discovered and described in the course of one year. As part of their effort to catalog all plant life on Earth, Botanical Garden scientists named 81 new...

New edge of extinction research is creating a revival of conservation and interest in what these old plants mean to the future A botanist brings a species of alfalfa from Siberia, to the United States. His hope? The plant survives, and leads to a new winter-hardy alfalfa. But what also happened during this time in the late 1800's, isn't just a story of legend and lore. The truth of the matter is creating a current revival in both interest and conservation of what's now called a crop's...

NEW YORK, May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In anticipation of UN World Environment Day in June, Avon Hello Green Tomorrow is once again mobilizing people around the globe to help restore critically endangered tropical forests of South America and Indonesia - forests which serve as the "lungs of the earth." In just two years, Hello Green Tomorrow generated more than $3.5 million and restored thousands of acres through partnerships with The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund, and...

TORONTO, May 29, 2012 /CNW/ - Earth Rangers and the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) today announced a $500,000 donation from HSBC Bank Canada to help bring hands-on, experiential conservation education to school children across the country.  Earth Rangers and the NCC will each receive $250,000 over a five year period, starting in 2012. HSBC Bank Canada's donation will: -- Help Earth Rangers' National Tour reach an additional 250 schools across Canada...

Ten new species are highlighted in the Top Ten New Species list for 2012, the fifth year for this interesting record. The list, created by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of scientists from around the world, was released on May 23, the birthday of the Swedish botanist who created the current system of flora and fauna classification, Carolus Linnaeus. Since Linnaeus created this system in the eighteenth century, almost two million...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com Civilization has long been derided for intruding upon the habitats of wild animals, and even man’s smaller neighbors have been affected by the wheels of progress. Another measure of this impact can be seen in how street lighting is having a transformative effect on communities of insects and other invertebrates living near them, according to researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. A report published in Biology Letters showed that...