Researchers working to bring back animals like the passenger pigeon and woolly mammoth discuss the implications of their work.

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Human babies and mouse pups both automatically and deeply relax when carried by their mums, new research has revealed. The study showed the babies' heart rates slowed down and their nervous and motor systems relaxed when they were carried, suggesting it doesn't just feel good, its an essential mother-infant interaction.

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 ...

The Dumbo Octopus belongs to the genus Grimpoteuthis, and is given its nickname based on its resemblance to the large-eared Disney elephant. They can live up to 7,000 meters below the surface, though many are found between 1,000 and 4,000 meters. It feeds unlike any other octopus, by skimming the surface of the sea floor looking for crustaceans to swallow whole.

The largest specimen on record was 1.8 m (6ft) long, weighing 5.9 kg (13 pounds).

A lack of sea ice caused by global warming meant this polar bear was unable to hunt seals and died of starvation. The carcass was found in northern Svalbard, Norway, far from its normal range, where he probably was looking for food.

Glow-in-the-dark rabbits were born a few days ago at the University of Istanbul, Turkey. To produce the ‘mutant’ bunnies, researchers took two embryos from a pregnant female rabbit, injected them with a fluorescent jellyfish protein, and reinserted them into the female rabbit. The scientists believe this experiment could help in the development of better, more efficient ways to produce medicines.

Potoos are a small New World family of solitary and nocturnal birds. Most are so poorly known they seem more fiction than substance, their gruff or wailing cries ghostly delusions of the dim nocturnal world they inhabit.