Aral Sea blues
Once the world's fourth largest inland body of water, irrigation shrank the Aral Sea dramatically, and by 2000, had split it into three parts. Now images from Europe's Envisat satellite show that 80 per cent of its large eastern lobe has disappeared, just in the last three years.
Bat cave emptied
More than 90 per cent of the 30,000 bats living in New Jersey's best known bat cave, the Hibernia Mine, have been killed by white nose syndrome, a mysterious disease devastating bat populations in the north-eastern US. Thought to be spread by a fungus, the syndrome has killed an estimated 400,000 bats since it emerged in 2006, says the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Stem cells from blood
Cells capable of maturing into any tissue in the body have been made for the first time from blood, claims Cellular Dynamics International of Madison, Wisconsin. The company ...
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