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In the entirety of the animal kingdom, humanity has never held a monopoly on intelligence: considering that the concept of intelligence boils down to the ability to gather and usefully process information, this means that virtually all creatures possess at least some degree of intelligence. Humans tend to stand apart in this regard, due to the degree that our capacities have developed to, but even then many of these cognitive traits are shared with some of our non-human brethren: great apes such as chimpanzees are adept tool-users, prairie dogs have a sophisticated vocabulary, and octopuses have excellent problem solving skills.
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Researchers at Harvard University have built a light-sensitive, self-propelled artificial machine-organism, in the form of a tiny robot stingray. The project was done in an effort to test the feasibility of making hybrid replacement organs for human patients, such as bioartificial hearts, that could use natural muscle motions to function, as opposed to the electrical operation that today’s prosthetics require.
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The double-whammy of global warming and a record-breaking El Niño are having yet another detrimental effect, killing massive amounts of sea life off of the coast of Chile. Being blamed is an algal bloom that is choking the waters of the Pacific, killing fish such as cuttlefish, salmon and sardines, and may be responsible for the deaths of over 300 whales that washed ashore last year.
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The World Wildlife Fund has recently announced some good news on the animal conservation front: the number of tigers living in the wild has increased for the first time since records started to be taken in the early twentieth century. There are at least 3,890 tigers in the wild, up from an estimated 3,200 in 2010. While an increase of a mere 690 individuals mightn’t seem like that many, it does represent a 21-percent increase.

"This offers us great hope and shows that we can save species and their habitats when governments, local communities and conservationists work together," says Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF international.
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