species

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Dungeons & Dragons Rule Changes Cause Big Drama

'Race' is now 'species' in classic role-playing game, plus more rules updates

(Newser) - For years, Dungeons & Dragons players started off their epic fantasy campaigns by choosing a race and a class. For races, think "biology," like human, elf, halfling, or dwarf. For classes, think "job," like fighter, wizard, rogue, or cleric. But in the first significant change to...

'Evidence Is Growing That Humans Are Not Drinking Alone'

Rejected male fruit flies are just some of the creatures in the natural world that consume alcohol

(Newser) - Even bugs get the blues, then drown their sorrows in booze. And they're not the only species besides humans: A new study reveals more on "nature's hidden happy hour," in which a "diverse coterie" of animals are revealed to take part in consuming the alcohol...

He Hit a Bird-Watching Mark Once Thought Unreachable

American Peter Kaestner is the first to document 10K different species

(Newser) - Peter Kaestner has seen 10,000 different bird species, which, if you're not familiar with birding, sounds pretty impressive. If, however, you are familiar with birding, it's far more than that. As in, it's unprecedented. Last month, the 70-year-old retired American diplomat became the first person to...

Birders in Awe as Storm Delivers 'Uber-Rare' Species

16 North American species spotted in UK and Ireland, some for the first time

(Newser) - The height of excitment in England is having your soccer team win the Premier League. Bird-watchers say the feeling is akin to what they experienced over the weekend as 16 North American bird species, blown across the Atlantic with the remnants of Hurricane Lee, arrived on British and Irish shores....

Sorry, Climate Change. There's Another Problem
Sorry, Climate Change.
There's Another Problem
opinion
Mar 11, 2020 6:00 PM CDT

Sorry, Climate Change. There's Another Problem

Tamar Stelling has a new way to measure Earth's loss of species

(Newser) - Climate change isn't our only environmental problem—and evidence lies in the North Sea. Back in the 16th century a Dutch fishmonger could witness "whales everywhere, as far as the eye can see," writes Tamar Stelling at the Correspondent . "Some majestically spring from the water as...

Man's Obsession: Prove Duck With Pink Feathers Does Exist

Richard Thorns wants to be first to see one since 1949

(Newser) - Hope is the thing with feathers, poet Emily Dickinson wrote. For Richard Thorns, the feathers are pink. Thorns' hope? To prove that a colorful duck is not extinct. This week, he launches a seventh expedition into the inaccessible wilds of Myanmar to search for the pink-headed duck that hasn't...

Fatal Disease on Rise in Humans, Deer in Wisconsin

Chronic wasting disease seen more amid worries deer may pass it to humans

(Newser) - Variants of a fatal brain disease are on the rise in both deer and humans across the country and especially in Wisconsin, leaving some worrying that the deer version, called chronic wasting disease, may be spreading to people. And while a cross-species jump to humans has yet to be observed,...

Study: 'Golden Wolf' Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight

We just thought it was the African golden jackal

(Newser) - Africa, home to the Ethiopian wolf and the gray wolf, can now lay claim to the African golden wolf—the first new species of canid (which also encompasses jackals, foxes, and coyotes) to be discovered in 150 years, reports National Geographic . The new species has long been misunderstood to be...

Mass Extinction Underway, Will Kill Off Humans: Report

Current extinction rate is shocking, scientists say

(Newser) - Feeling upbeat? Enough of that: Planet Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction that will likely annihilate the human race unless we can curb the trend, scientists say. According to a new paper , the current rate of species extinction outpaces the natural rate far more than anyone knew, NBC News...

Does Another Species Already Rule the Earth?

Rats and ants are contenders; others may rise up

(Newser) - Humans have been ruling Earth for a while now, but are we just a flash in the pan? Scientists are analyzing other species and asking whether any will eventually take over should we perish by plague, climate change, war, famine, you name it. Or perhaps one already dominates without our...

Scientists Looking to Reverse Extinction

New techniques could bring back long-lost creatures

(Newser) - Human activity and other factors have annihilated countless species over the last few hundred thousand years, but researchers now believe some of those creatures aren't necessarily gone forever, the New York Times finds. Cloning requires an intact cell, but advances in technology mean that it could be possible to...

New Fossils Reveal More Human Species

Early human evolution was more crowded than we thought: Leakeys

(Newser) - The discovery of three new fossils, unveiled today, illuminate and confirm a line of human evolution that is more complicated than scientists once thought. The groundbreaking bones, about 2 million years old and unearthed in Kenya, prove that there were at least two Homo species—in addition to Homo erectus—...

Top 10 Newly Discovered Species

Including a mushroom named for SpongeBob

(Newser) - Roughly 18,000 new species were discovered last year, and scientists at Arizona State University have compiled a list of their 10 favorites. A sample, from the Arizona Republic :

Scientists Find New Species of Amphibians

Limbless creatures look like earthworms

(Newser) - Scientists have unearthed a brand-new, weird-looking species of amphibians in northeastern India. The creatures, named chikilidae, live deep in the dirt and are limbless, reports Nature , which notes that they look more like worms than, say, frogs or salamanders. “The discovery adds a major branch to the amphibian tree...

Thai Elephants' New Threat: Poachers After Their Meat

Some Asian cultures believe flesh will boost one's sexual prowess

(Newser) - A new gastronomic fad in Thailand is pushing the country's elephants a step closer to extinction. Poachers, who have historically hunted elephants to obtain their ivory tusks, are now killing the giant mammals and selling their trunks and sexual organs to be eaten as food, reports the AP . Consumption...

Earth Holds 8.7M Species, Study Finds

And most of them are still undiscovered

(Newser) - Humanity shares the planet with roughly 8.7 million species, most of them still undiscovered, according to a new study. Researchers used complex mathematical models to tackle a question that has long puzzled scientists, identifying numerical patterns in data from 1.2 million known species, excluding viruses and microorganisms, reports...

New Life Form Discovered at Truck Stop
 New Life Form 
 Discovered at 
 Truck Stop 
in case you missed it
Apr 30, 2011 8:34 AM CDT

New Life Form Discovered at Truck Stop

Biologist makes big find en route to collecting trip

(Newser) - The world is teeming with undiscovered species, as biologist Piotr Naskrecki discovered at a ... South African truck stop. Naskrecki was part of a team hunting for specimens of Mantophasmotes—an entirely new order of carnivorous insects only discovered in 2002—in a remote area of Namibia. When he paused at...

Scientists Slash Number of World's Plants by 600,000

Turns out that many plants have multiple names—some have hundreds

(Newser) - A comprehensive scientific study will trim some 600,000 duplicates from the world’s list of flowering plants, the Guardian reports. After centuries of scientists naming “new” plants that had already been discovered, we currently count the number of plant species at about 1 million—but a more realistic...

Rich May Evolve Into Own Species

Wealthy winning huge edge with longer life, access to biotechnology

(Newser) - The super wealthy will have such access to high levels of health care, biotechnology and robotics that they could develop into their own species of being, argues a Silicon Valley  futurist. The rich will be able to grow their own organs and manipulate genetics for superior abilities and freedom from...

Giant Rat Found in 'Lost Volcano'

Fanged toads, mini 'Ewoks' among species discovered in New Guinea jungle

(Newser) - A new species of giant rat with no fear of humans has been discovered in a volcanic crater deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. It's the same kind of rat "you find in city sewers"—except it's 32 inches long, said a scientist traveling with a...

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