animals (Page 10)

If a Cornell University researcher has his way, cheetahs, lions, elephants, camels and other large wild animals may soon roam parts of North America. But wait, you may say, cheetahs, lions and elephants aren’t native to the US! But their ancient ANCESTORS were, so there’s no reason these animals can’t live here again.

“If we only have 10 minutes to present this idea, people think we’re nuts,” says biologist Harry Greene. “But if people hear the one-hour version, they realize they haven’t thought about this as much as we have.” He points out that these species are dying out rapidly in their native homes, especially in Africa. This may be our only chance to save them.
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Newswise – A recent shark attack left a young fisherman,who was standing in the ocean fishing with live bait, withone leg missing. Despite this, biologists insist that sharksare not nearly as dangerous as they seem and that thethriller Jaws gave them a bad reptuation that doesn’t fitthe facts. Shark expert George Burgess says that the movie’sportrayal, 30 years ago, of a great white shark as avengeful predator, set into motion the slaughter of sharksthemselves.
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Have you ever wondered why butterflies are calledBUTTERflies? They should be called “flutter-bys” instead,because of their seemingly random flight patterns. In LewisCarroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” illustrator John Tennieldrew illustrations of sticks of butter with wings on them.Now ornithologists have discovered that butterflies do notflutter aimlessly, but are actually following precise flightpaths. And dog owners have long said that their pets both smileand laugh, but scientists have insisted this was all in thepet owners’ imaginations?until now.
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The European Space Agency wants to build a Noah’s Ark on theMoon, in case the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid ornuclear holocaust. It could also save species destroyed byglobal warming.

In bbcnews.com, Pallab Ghosh quotes the ESA?s Dr. BernardFoing as saying, “If there were a catastrophic collision onEarth or a nuclear war you could place some samples ofEarth’s biosphere, including humans, [on the Moon]. Youcould repopulate the Earth afterwards like a Noah’s Ark.” Hewants to collect DNA samples of every single species ofplant and animal.
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