Sadly, the remaining rhinos in Mozambique are reported to have been wiped out due to poaching. The animals had been under protection on a preserve, but 30 of the 100 rangers who were supposed to be caring for the animals are believed to have been aiding poachers, and are currently awaiting trial. Even if found guilty, it will only be a misdemeanor.

Rhino horns are a big market in certain Asian countries, primarily China and Vietnam, and are used in folk remedies or for ornamental purposes. If poaching continues, experts warn that elephants will suffer the same fate. ...

The greater sage grouse is found in the western parts of the United States and Canada. When mating season is upon the birds, males and females meet at breeding locations known as leks. The males strut around, inflating and deflating the air sacs in their chests to impress the females.

This bizarre looking thing is "Ata the humanoid", a mummified corpse found in the Atacama Desert ten years ago. It's strange appearance led to many calling it an "alien", claiming it as proof that extraterrestrials have visited Earth.

Well, it's finally been submitted to a battery of tests and the results show it to be fully human. DNA analysis has even managed to pinpoint the location and nationality of its mother. The results do suggest that it was once alive and human, not a hoax, and so asks more questions than they answer.

The bone analysis suggests that this is not a fetus, but a child between the ages of 6-8. The specimen has just ten ribs (as opposed to 12), is just six inches long and has severe facial deformities. These symptoms do ...

Dental cavities aren’t caused by sugar, but by a byproduct from bacteria that feed on that sugar. A new molecule called Keep 32 has been created to eliminate that bacteria in the mouth. If the human trials go well, Keep 32 may begin to appear in toothpastes to help make dental visits less painful and keep smiles healthier and brighter.

Albert Einstein once noted “intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience," but was he right? Should we pay closer attention to our 'gut feeling'? Ben Newell explains.

Link: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20130305-24331-2.html

Titin is the largest known naturally occurring protein and is composed of 34,350 amino acids. It is also known as connectin and is abundant in striated muscle. Though it is 189,819 letters long, its status as the longest word in the English language is debatable, given that it is a technical word not found in the dictionary. ...

At our home, we use the plastic bags we get from grocery shopping to store garbage. Technically, we are putting them to good use, but they are still a wasteful invention, and something needs to be done to prevent problems like this .

As cubs a lion, a tiger, and a bear had been owned by a drug dealer who did not properly care for them. The bear’s harness grew into his skin because the owner did not alter it as the animal grew. They had been abused and neglected early in life, but were finally rescued. The bear's harness was surgically removed.

After they had been taken in by an animal sanctuary in Georgia, the staff tried to separate them due to obvious concerns that the three large predators would fight. During the trial of separation, the animals were uncooperative and behaved poorly. Once reunited, the three calmed down and were well behaved.

Twelve years later, the three friends spend their days playing, cuddling, and eating together. There are no plans to separate th ...

For me, the word that comes to mind is blurt or blob Not sure why. Anyway, here's a little background on what this odd looking frog is all about.

Purple frogs are found in India in the Western Ghats. Purple frogs burrow and one was found as far as 8 meters below the surface. It spends most of its life underground, but emerges for a two-week-long mating stint during the monsoon season. Females will lay approximately 3000 eggs at this time.

Their lineage reaches back 130 million years, though their elusive behavior caused scientists to not have a scientific description of them until 2003. They are currently labeled as endangered by the IUCN. ...

The Atlas Moth, Attacus atlas, is one of the largest species of butterfly that can be kept by insect enthusiasts. The moth is beautiful and very large, but also the caterpillars look amazing. The caterpillars are green-whitish with strange soft spines on their backs. Their last feet have a bright red spot on them

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal have discovered a bacterium living in the frozen permafrost of the high Arctic. The permafrost bacterium, Planococcus halocryophilus strain Or1, grows and divides at -15°C and can even remain metabolically active at -25°C.

This bacteria is yielding clues about how extraterrestrial organisms might endure extreme conditions - as one of the things that makes it extremely hard for life to flourish in foreboding places like Mars and the moons of Saturn is the punishing cold. ...

This image shows 26 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms rearranging bonds. There has never been an image of a single bond resolve at this level of detail so close to the reaction time before.

Meet the fruit dove. These colourful, frugivorous doves are found in forests and woodlands in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Males and females of many fruit dove species look very different. For example, the female Many-coloured Fruit Dove shares the male’s crimson crown and deep pink undertail feathers, but is otherwise green, whereas the male has a crimson on the upper back and has areas of yellow, olive, cinnamon, and grey.

Overhunting is one reason for wildlife population decline, but do these animals even know what we’re doing to them? New research suggests that they do. Woolly monkeys in the Amazon were observed to react differently to people in their territory, depending on the behavior of the human.

In areas where hunting is heavy, humans gathering food or performing research do not elicit much of a response from the monkeys. Hunters, however, result in the monkeys becoming very quiet and motionless. In quieter areas where human contact is less frequent, the monkeys are more wary of the researchers and gatherers. This indicates that the monkeys are behaving based on experience.

The long term advantage of this behavior is uncertain. Woolly monkeys are highl ...

After the tsunami in 2004, an orphaned baby hippo was found stranded on a coral reef off the coast of Kenya. He was brought to a wildlife sanctuary, but couldn’t be put with the other hippos because the oldest male may have viewed him as a threat and killed him.

The hippo, named Owen, was put in with a 130-year-old tortoise named Mzee. Owen was desperate for a mother figure and immediately took to Mzee. In the coming months, the two became inseparable. They snuggled together and even tried to communicate. While hippos are known for being social, the same is not true for tortoises.

Workers at the sanctuary feared for Mzee’s safety as Owen continued to grow. They were separated in 2007 and a young female hippo named Cleo provided companions ...

Some species of woodpecker have amazing tongues. It is covered in small hooks that allow it to ensnare insect larvae from a piece of wood. The tongue is approximately three times the length of the beak, allowing it to capture evasive prey. It is so long, it has to fork at the back of the throat and wrap around the woodpecker’s skull when retracted.

This is the Great Blue Hole of Belize in Central America, and at 300 metres across and 124 m deep, it's thought to be the largest submarine cave on Earth. It was first discovered by French explorer Jacques Cousteau, and was formed over a period of around 140,000 years when the sea levels were much lower than they are now. As the sea levels rose, a number of limestone caves were flooded over time to create this almost perfect circle. It's now home to several species of fish and reef shark. ...

This enigmatic ant with out-of-this-world pigmentation patterns was recently found in the Philippines. The females have a black stripe across the eyes that resembles a pirate eye patch; this distinctive trait inspired the scientists to choose the name Cardiocondyla pirate, or pirate ant, for the species.