High in the Sierra del Merendón mountains in Honduras, a jaguar has been photographed at 2,200 meters, or about 7,200 feet — an unusually lofty elevation for a species that usually sticks to lowland forests and wetlands. Jaguars (Panthera onca) are typically found below 1,000 m (3,300 ft), making high-elevation sightings so unusual that scientists have coined a term for the big cats spotted here: cloud jaguars. Seeing jaguars at this elevation is very rare, said Allison Devlin, who directs the jaguar program for U.S.-based wildcat conservation NGO Panthera. “The fact that they’re able to travel through these high elevation areas also shows how resilient they are.” The jaguar, a healthy-looking young male, was photographed by camera traps on Feb. 6 this year — almost 10 years to the day, and in the same location, where camera traps captured the first recorded glimpse of an elusive cloud jaguar in the Sierra del Merendón. The mountains form an important corridor between Honduras and Guatemala, linking the jaguar’s historical range, which spans 18 countries across the Americas, running from Mexico to Argentina. As apex predators, jaguars play a key role in the ecosystem by keeping prey populations healthy and balanced, and in helping prevent zoonotic diseases that jump between species and can infect humans. But like all wild cats, they face multiple threats. Once-intact forests are being felled to make way for human settlements, plantations, ranches, mines and other developments. Climate change is also taking a toll: Forest fires are scorching wetlands…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

Authorities in Nigeria have arrested the suspected kingpin of a transnational pangolin trafficking network, the latest in a series of high-profile wildlife busts in the country. Shamsideen Abubakar was linked to a September 2021 case in which authorities seized 1,009.5 kilograms (2,226 pounds) of scales in Lagos, estimated to have come from at least 5,451 pangolins. Two of his associates, Sunday Ebenyi and Salif Sandwidi, were arrested at the time, but Abubakar himself remained on the run until now. The arrest was the result of a collaboration between Nigerian authorities and Netherlands-based NGO the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC). “The arrest sends a strong signal to Nigeria’s illegal wildlife trafficking network that arrest warrants will be strongly pursued,” Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) said in a press release. Abubakar’s arrest follows two high-profile busts in Nigeria over the last two years. Each resulted in the seizure of several tons of pangolin scales and the arrest of suspected wildlife trafficking kingpins, including Chinese and Vietnamese nationals. Pangolin scales are coveted in East Asia for use in traditional medicine, and the meat is eaten in Nigeria. Selling pangolins is banned in the country and internationally, but they continue to be sold on the black market for a hefty price. Trafficking has driven all eight known pangolin species to the brink of extinction: three are listed as critically endangered, three as endangered and two as vulnerable. The high profits and low risks involved in such wildlife crime attract transnational criminal…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

Between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, many of the world's largest mammals disappeared. Picture creatures like saber-toothed cats with 7-inch fangs and elephant-sized sloths. Woolly mammoths whose curved tusks grew longer than 12 feet. Even a three-ton wombat the size of a car. After roaming Earth for millions of years, most large-bodied mammals—especially those weighing over a ton—were wiped out. Vanished.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

This story was originally published by Oklahoma Voice.

Barbara Hoberock
Oklahoma Voice

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have legalized sports betting.

After it fell four votes short of passing, Sen. Bill Coleman, R-Ponca City, the author, said he might seek another vote on House Bill 1047 after working for years to gain consensus on a bill that would allow Oklahomans to legally wager on sporting outcomes.

The measure would have allowed tribes to offer retail and mobile sports betting on tribal lands, remitting 8 percent of earnings to the state, Coleman said.

Mobile sports betting operators could also enter partnerships with the tribes to offer mobile sports betting on non-tribal lands, Coleman said.

Sports betting is already in Oklahoma through the prediction market and is operating illegally, Coleman said.

The state doesn’t get a dime out of it, and it is an unregulated industry, Coleman said.

His measure is estimated to bring in between $15 million and $18 million annually in additional revenue to the state.

Part of the proceeds would go into a fund used to globally promote the Oklahoma City Thunder, the state’s NBA team.

It would allow the tribes and the state to supplement existing gaming compacts, where the tribes pay the state an exclusivity fee to operate Class III electronic games and nonhouse-banked card games.

In fiscal year 2025, Oklahoma collected more than $221 million in exclusivity fees, a 5 percent increase over the prior year, according to the Oklahoma Gaming Compliance Unit Annual Report.

Thirty-nine states and Washington, D.C., have some form of legalized sports betting, according to Senate staff.

Critics of legalizing sports betting said they were concerned about the impact gambling has on low-income Oklahomans, young men and families.

“This bill doesn’t simply legalize a harmless activity,” said Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin. “It institutionalizes a vice and then asks the state to profit from it. That is a fundamental ethical problem.”

When the state sanctions gambling, it becomes a participant in a “moral hazard,” Deevers said.

Sen. Brian Guthrie, R-Bixby, said online sports betting is the fastest growing addiction and is destroying young men in their 20s.

“Gambling addiction is increasing across our United States, and the last thing I want to do is support that,” Guthrie said.

States that have expanded gambling have seen a rise in financial and family problems, said Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher.

“It’s been disproportionate on the most economically precarious households,” Jech said. “Gambling has proven to foster addictive behaviors, a rise in credit card defaults, mortgage delinquencies.”

The post Oklahoma Senate says no to sports betting appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

A Japanese startup has filed for approval of a new drug to treat chronic kidney disease in cats, the founder said on Monday, offering hope for a common affliction that currently has no definitive cure.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Wolves on a remote island in Lake Superior appear to be thriving, but they're making deep dents in the moose population that they rely on as a leading food source, according to a report released Monday.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Antonio has spent the past seven years running toward fires that most others run from. A firefighter in the Brazilian Amazon since 2019, he works inside the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. But things are changing, and fast. "2024 was the most extreme year for fires," Antonio said. "I had never seen anything like it. The forest burned like dry pasture—it was frightening for those of us who risk our lives to protect it."

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

Wolves on a remote island in Lake Superior appear to be thriving, but they’re making deep dents in the moose population that they rely on as a leading food source, according to a report released Monday. Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre (54,200-hectare) national park in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The island is a natural laboratory, offering scientists a rare opportunity to observe wolves and moose largely free from human influence. Researchers have conducted wolf and moose population surveys on the island since 1958. The surveys had been an annual winter event when the roadless island is closed to visitors, but researchers have run into obstacles in recent years. The pandemic in 2021 forced scientists to cancel the survey for the first time. The National Park Service ordered researchers to evacuate the island during their 2024 winter survey after weeks of unusually warm weather left the ice surrounding the island unsafe for ski-plane landings. Researchers rely on the planes for easier wildlife tracking but the island has no runway, forcing them to land on iced-over Lake Superior. Things didn’t go much better last year when researchers were forced to scrap the effort after their pilot suffered a last-minute medical issue. But this year a team of researchers led by scientists from Michigan Tech University were able to conduct a survey from Jan. 22 through March 3. Findings from the survey led them to estimate the island’s wolf population at 37 animals. Data scientists gathered before they evacuated in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

How are bacterial pathogens able to effectively overcome plants' defense mechanisms? Researchers working with Professor Şuayb Üstün at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, have found a surprising answer to this question: The pathogens seize tiny compartments in plant cells, known as processing bodies or P-bodies, to selectively deactivate protein production when the plant needs it the most. The researchers describe this previously unknown strategy of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae in an article published in the journal Science Advances.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Kenneth Deer, member of the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke, delivers a joint statement on behalf of the Canadian Coalition for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples on Friday, April 24. Photo by Tristan Ahtone / Grist

This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, a sweeping resolution that enshrined international standards for Indigenous land, language, health, and more.

“Canada” and the “United States” were among a handful of countries that initially opposed UNDRIP and later adopted it. But in the years since, Indigenous people around the world say their countries are not living up to the framework.

Indigenous people are being killed for protecting their territories, criminalized for practicing their culture, and seeing their lands stripped of resources without consent. As the first week of the world’s largest gathering of Indigenous Peoples wrapped, advocates called for countries to live up to international human rights standards like UNDRIP.

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, has been underway in “New York City” since April 20 and is set to run until May 1.

At the UN, Kenneth Deer, member of the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke, delivered a joint statement on behalf of the Canadian Coalition for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He called for states to establish independent monitoring systems to “ensure the full and effective implementation” of UNDRIP.

“You need to have a group of independent, Indigenous individuals who will have access to how the government is implementing the declaration,” he said in an interview.

“They should be able to study what they’re doing and make an evaluation whether they’re being effective or not, and then whether there’s failures. They need to highlight those failures to the government, and that’s how you get effective implementation.”

Deer acknowledged how complicated that process could be, which he said highlights the need for a monitoring body.

“To implement the declaration, they need a watchdog,” he said. “They need somebody over them to make sure they’re carrying out their responsibilities.”

‘Frozen in time’

Ryan Fleming from Attawapiskat First Nation in northern “Ontario” spoke on the lack of implementation from “Canada” when it comes to UNDRIP and upholding treaty rights.

In 2021, “Canada” passed a law that committed to aligning all government policies with UNDRIP, but Fleming and others said there’s still a long way to go for those rights to actually be upheld.

He described his community as “frozen in time,” a symptom of the poverty he says is created by “Canada.”

In 2019, Attawapiskat Chief — then councillor — Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin and former chief Theresa Spence endured a 15 day hunger strike to secure change from provincial and federal governments to reenact a dormant task force to address the urgency of water quality in the community and other issues affecting the members.

“Until Canada addresses those structural conditions, then you can’t properly move forward with UNDRIP,” Fleming said.

With legislation enacted, such as Bill C-5, which allows projects to be “advanced through an accelerated process” there is apprehension on the free, prior and informed consent promised through UNDRIP.

“With their Bill C-5 and Bill 5 in Ontario — both fast track legislation — that has essentially poured gasoline on implementation processes,” Fleming said.

In an emailed statement, Jennifer Cooper, spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, responded to concerns about Indigenous rights and highlighted the Crown’s efforts, which include an Indigenous advisory council and increased funding.

“As we implement the Building Canada Act and advance nation-building projects, we will honour our commitments under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, Duty to Consult, and Modern Treaties and Self-Government Agreements,” Cooper said.

“We have made real progress together, but we know there are still barriers that slow things down. We’re improving how we work internally and bringing greater clarity to the process. We continue to develop rights-based agreements together with our partners in the true spirit of reconciliation, shared prosperity and partnership.”

The province of “British Columbia,” which enacted legislation to enforce UNDRIP in 2019, has recently been under fire for seeking to suspend or amend parts of that law, after a court ruling found the province inconsistent with its own rules. The province has since backtracked, saying it would collaborate with First Nations leaders on a path forward.

“The Inherent pre-existing rights of First Nations are part of, and are protected by, international human rights law,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak in a statement.

“[UNDRIP] affirms First Nations rights as human rights. Neither Canada nor British Columbia can extinguish, amend or suspend First Nations’ human rights and remain a respected member of the international community.”

While discussions at international gatherings such as the UNPFII centre on the implementation of previous years’ recommendations, Fleming noted how the discussions and reports don’t always mean action is being taken to follow UNDRIP.

“In practice, you don’t see that coming to fruition,” he said. “We don’t need a new treaty. We don’t need a new agreement. We just need [Canada] to implement the original agreement. We need to honour that and then we can move forward.”

Struggles echo worldwide

Leaders speak at UNPFII last week. Photo by Tristan Ahtone / Grist

Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders from around the world are facing their own issues when it comes to their governments meeting the human rights standards outlined in UNDRIP — from health, to culture, languages, land rights and more.

In Ecuador, Indigenous Peoples are struggling with health challenges as leaders said resource extraction without enough oversight has led to contaminated water sources, malnutrition and displacement of communities.

Ercilia Castañeda is Kichwa and the vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which represents 15 nationalities and 18 Indigenous Peoples.

At the UN, Castañeda called on Ecuador and international bodies like the UNPFII to strengthen legal human rights frameworks.

“In Ecuador, Free, Prior and Informed Consultation is guaranteed in the Constitution, and judicial decisions have increasingly affirmed that the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples must be guaranteed in decisions affecting their territories and collective rights,” she said.

“However, implementation remains weak and ineffective in practice. One clear example is the Suroriente and Surandina oil rounds, which continue to advance without effectively guaranteeing these rights.”

Castañeda hoped that speaking at the UN could apply pressure on Ecuador and asked the Permanent Forum to recommend Ecuador guarantee Indigenous health and rights.

“We cannot speak of health while there is tear gas in our communities, while 60 per cent of the water sources in the Amazon are contaminated, while 40 per cent of our children live with chronic malnutrition, while around 10,000 people have been murdered in 2025,” Castañeda said in Spanish while addressing the Permanent Forum. “We cannot speak of human rights while the fabric of community life is being ripped apart.”

Issues around physical health also extend to cultural and spiritual health suffering for many nations, the forum heard.

Moses Goods, a Kanaka Maoli actor, spoke on behalf of the Nation of Hawai’i and highlighted “the right to remain who we are.” He explained how Indigenous languages serve as memory, identity and medicine — and are a protected right under UNDRIP.

In an interview, Goods described the loss of language as a method of Hawaiian decline.

“Language is a link to our culture. It’s a link to who we are as a people and our identity, which is linked to health. When you take those things away, the health of the people start to decline,” he said.

“It was intentionally taken away from us as Indigenous people, as Indigenous Hawaiians, so that we would decline. And it worked to a degree, until now.”

Today, culture continues to be weakened including with the disruption of access to lands, such as the wildfires that have caused displacement in Lahaina.

Goods noted how coming together as Indigenous Peoples in places such as the UNPFII allows for stories to be shared and therefore strengthened.

“We keep telling our stories, we keep telling the truth over and over again to each other, and we strengthen each other. And with those numbers, we can make something happen,” he said.

Self determination as a key factor

In the forum’s first week, Indigenous leaders repeatedly highlighted the need for direct funding to support UNDRIP implementation.

In a presentation on the UN Trust Fund for Indigenous Peoples, Aluki Kotierk, who is Inuk and the chair of the permanent forum, explained that the fund “contributes directly to facilitating the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

But Kotierk also said support from member states for the fund is minimal. Kotierk noted that there are only three states who contribute annually to the fund.

New systems, including a policy marker system by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are set to help track that funds reach Indigenous Peoples directly.

While the exact process is currently unknown, the hope is that funds for climate and development will reach the Indigenous Peoples without getting delayed through state intermediaries. Requests for comment from UNDP did not receive a response by publication time.

As Indigenous leaders from around the world demanded change on international and domestic levels, Kenneth Deer said that UNDRIP implementation should be a collaborative process.

“The relationship is about coexistence. It’s not about domination of Canada over Indigenous people,” he said .“What we need to offer is solutions, not just come to the UN and complain about Canada, but come to the United Nations with solutions.”

The post At the UN, Mohawk leader calls for UNDRIP watchdogs to ensure standards are met appeared first on Indiginews.

From Indiginews via This RSS Feed.

A new study by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) has revealed significant cryptic diversity within two-toed sloths (Choloepus) in Amazonia, challenging the long-established taxonomy of the genus. This international effort involved key South American collaborators.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Scientists at Stanford University have discovered that DRT3, a unique defense system found in bacteria, creates DNA to protect against viral infections. DRT3 is made up of two different enzymes called reverse transcriptases, Drt3a and Drt3b, and a piece of noncoding RNA (ncRNA). Together, this trio makes long, double-stranded DNA consisting of alternating repeats (GT/AC).

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

This story was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.

Frank Zufall
Wisconsin Examiner

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) held a public information hearing on four permit applications by Enbridge for streambank erosion control on the 41-mile reroute of Line 5, a light crude oil and natural gas pipeline. The 16 people who spoke all voiced opposition, either specifically to the permits or to the reroute itself, and many cast aspersions on the Canadian pipeline corporation.

In addition to ongoing legal challenges, the four permits are among the last hurdles in Wisconsin that Enbridge needs to clear to reroute its pipeline around the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Reservation, which borders Lake Superior.

Enbridge is under a court order that has been stayed in a federal appeals court to remove the existing Line 5 pipeline from the reservation by June. The Bad River Band has rejected several offers from Enbridge to keep the line on the reservation, and after Enbridge was ordered to remove the line from the reservation, the Band redirected its opposition to the reroute, arguing that it poses an environmental threat to its watershed.

Enbridge is seeking four streambank erosion-control permits for four waterways in Ashland County: an unnamed tributary to the Brunsweiler River, Beartrap Creek, Bay City Creek, and Little Beartrap Creek.

Joe McGaver of Enbridge Environment Projects detailed the work proposed for each of the four sites. He noted that Lake Superior Consulting identified the erosion issues, and the measures to address them are intended to “stabilize the streambanks and prevent continued erosion” below the ordinary high-water marks.

He also noted that Enbridge and the riparian landowners — those owning the land along the waterways — are “co-applicants” and also “co-permittees.”

At a recent Bayfield County Court hearing on April 16 requesting a stay of ongoing work on the reroute, pending a judicial review of approved permits, lawyers representing Bad River and environmental groups contended that under state statute only the riparian owner can seek a permit for modification of the shoreline. But the legal counsel for the DNR responded that it was its practice to use “co-applicants” in similar projects.

Comments

Ashley Guardado of Hempstead, New York, representing Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, urged the DNR to deny the four permits because they would jeopardize the waterways and the “pristine ecosystems that depend on them.”

“Approving these permits would also enable construction activities that pose long-term risks to water quality, habitat, and the broader watershed,” she said, and noted beyond the local creeks and river, the larger concern is the Great Lakes, which hold 20% of the world’s fresh water.

“So I urge you to consider what it really means to jeopardize these waterways and the ecosystems at both a local and a global level, be it encroaching on the tribal sovereignty and the rights of Indigenous nations that are within this territory to exacerbating the climate crisis and deepening our dependence on fossil fuels that move us only further away from the just transition that Wisconsin, the United States and the world very urgently need,” she said.

Gracie Waukechon, a Wisconsin resident, said the DNR shouldn’t approve the permits out of concern for the environment, and also because Enbridge isn’t legally qualified to seek the permits regarding riparian ownership and Enbridge’s history of environmental damage, including the 2010 crude oil spill of nearly 1 million gallons into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Skylar Harris, representing Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA), said her organization would submit detailed written objections to the specific permit application, but addressed the DNR’s interpretation of Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine.

“Riparian ownership language in Section 30.12 of the Wisconsin statutes was created in 1949 pursuant to the public trust doctrine to give landowners the ability to live along navigable waters and engage in limited construction activity that would improve navigation or protect the property from erosion and other hazards,” she said. “Because the Legislature was trying to limit the types of construction that could occur in navigable waters, non-riparians were explicitly excluded from permit eligibility. Enbridge has filed these applications for project permits, which is a non-riparian claiming that easements and co-applicant agreements with landowners are sufficient to get around the clear statutory prohibition against construction by non-riparians.”

She said the DNR supports Enbridge’s position and had “tentatively” made the determination to grant the permits, which, she said, would be “a blatant violation of explicit statutory mandates and a violation of the public’s constitutional right to use and enjoy Wisconsin’s navigable waters,” and would set a precedent for other commercial development and environmental damage.

Jadine Sonoda of Madison said Enbridge had raised concerns for Wisconsin because of issues during its Line 3 construction in Minnesota, where it had pierced an aquifer in Northern Minnesota and had agreed to a $2.8 million legal settlement.

Matthew Bourke of Michigan wondered if the DNR investigated any concerns raised in prior hearings, and he questioned why Enbridge had been allowed to pursue permits when it had been found to be trespassing on the Bad River reservations, and a court case in Michigan is challenging the closing of a section of the pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.

Patricia Hale, an attorney from Antigo also argued Enbridge didn’t have a right for the permits.

“This is not their (Enbridge) property,” she said of the waterway banks, adding that Enbridge shouldn’t be allowed to request permits based on the easement, because the public has voiced its opposition to Enbridge’s latest permit application for a Line 5 reroute.

Joe Bates, a Bad River tribal elder from Odanah, said Enbridge is endangering Wisconsin waterways by operating a pipeline originally built in 1953.

“This reroute also violates our treaty of 1854,” said Bates. “It (1854 treaty) guarantees us a permanent homeland.”

Bates said the reroute would surround the reservation, requiring members to seek permission from Enbridge to cross it to gather, hunt, or fish in the ceded territories, lands off the reservation where tribal members have rights to pursue resources. At the April 16 court hearing, legal counsel for Enbridge said the corporation would allow permission to tribal members to cross its pipeline for those who have a legal reason to do so.

“I urge you to please deny permits to Enbridge,” said Bates.

Jennifer Boulley, a Bad River member living in Washburn, also noted that just that morning the US Supreme Court ruled the case in Michigan regarding Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac will stay in a state of Michigan court and not a federal court as Enbridge had requested.

“Were just hoping that the DNR will continue to listen to the people and not the money, so we can save this water for future generations,” she said.

RJ Claire of Ashland County said the focus of the hearing is on specific technical issues, but she encouraged the DNR to consider a broader perspective on potential harm and environmental impact, and she accused the DNR of being complicit in enabling Enbridge to commit “violence” against the environment.

“Again and again and again and again, tribal members have been expressing to the rest of us that what’s happening right now is an act of violence,” she said. “The DNR is participating in enabling the violence of Enbridge. Who among you is willing to start breaking that pattern? Again, I know this is a technical hearing, but I think it’s really, really, really, really important and crucial that we are looking at this in a holistic way. Because I would argue that from when we focus on the technical parts, that’s a form of just dismissing the violence that is occurring.”

Melanie Conners, a Bad Rivers member who said she lived near Bad River and the Kakagon Sloughs, a wetland that has received international recognition due to its environmental niche and wild rice bed for the band, read a definition from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of “environmental justice” as “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people, regardless of color, race, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement and environmental law, regulations and policies.”

She questioned why Bad River members had to “bear the weight” of potential oil contamination.

“It’s Bad River tribal members who will be directly impacted,” she said, and added, “I harvest rice every year to sustain my family. How are you allowing this? This is environmental racism. Enbridge cannot guarantee that it will not contaminate our waters, our Kakagon Slough.”

Additional comments will be accepted until  May 2. Comments should be either emailed to macaulay.haller@wisconsin.gov or left via voice message at (608) 347-0240 or sent by mail to Macaulay Haller, 101 S. Webster Street, Madison,  53707-7921.

The post Opponents object to Enbridge’s erosion control plan along Line 5 reroute appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

KNBA Top Stories: A body found in a Spenard ravine last week has been identified as Kelly Hunt, a Shaktoolik college student missing since January. A former Juneau chiropractor facing multiple sexual assault charges could see his re-trial moved to Anchorage. In Southwest Alaska, a 3-year-old Goodnews Bay boy died after crashing through the ice and being trapped in a culvert. Anchorage pedestrian deaths are on the rise.

From Newscasts via This RSS Feed.

Contrails, short for condensation trails, are the white streaks often seen in the sky behind aircraft. The International Cloud Atlas, which classifies clouds, has a category just for them: cirrus homogenitus, an example of man-made clouds.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

Scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, CSIRO Darwin Laboratories and La Trobe University have identified key ecological needs of Caladenia formosa (elegant spider-orchid) for the first time, to improve conservation outcomes. Their findings are published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Nearly two decades after the United Nations adopted a landmark declaration on Indigenous rights, advocates say countries still aren’t living up to their promises to uphold and respect those rights.

Indigenous people are being killed for protecting their territories, criminalized for practicing their culture, and seeing their lands stripped of resources without consent. Last week at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, the world’s largest gathering of Indigenous peoples, leaders called for countries to fully implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP, and other international human rights standards.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted UNDRIP, a sweeping resolution that established international standards for Indigenous land, language, health, and more. The United States and Canada were among a handful of countries that initially opposed the declaration and later adopted it. But in the years since, Indigenous people in those countries, and around the world, say nations are not living up to the framework.

At the UN, Kenneth Deer, a member of the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke, delivered a joint statement on behalf of the Canadian Coalition for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He called for states to establish independent monitoring systems to “ensure the full and effective implementation” of UNDRIP.

“You need to have a group of independent, Indigenous individuals who will have access to how the government is implementing the declaration,” he said. “They should be able to study what they’re doing and make an evaluation whether they’re being effective or not, and then whether there’s failures. They need to highlight those failures to the government, and that’s how you get effective implementation.”

Deer acknowledged how complicated that process could be, which he said highlights the need for a monitoring body. “To implement the declaration, they need a watchdog,” he said. “They need somebody over them to make sure they’re carrying out their responsibilities.”

For many Indigenous nations, health also means cultural and spiritual health. Moses Goods, who is Kanaka Maoli, spoke on behalf of the Nation of Hawai’i and highlighted “the right to remain who we are.” He explained how Indigenous languages serve as memory, identity and medicine—and are a protected right under UNDRIP.

“Language is a link to our culture. It’s a link to who we are as a people and our identity, which is linked to health. When you take those things away, the health of the people start to decline,” he said. “It was intentionally taken away from us as Indigenous people, as Indigenous Hawaiians, so that we would decline. And it worked to a degree, until now.”

Today, culture continues to be weakened including with the disruption of access to lands, such as the wildfires that have caused displacement in Lahaina.

Despite the challenges, Goods noted that coming together as Indigenous Peoples in places such as the UNPFII is an important step. “We keep telling our stories, we keep telling the truth over and over again to each other, and we strengthen each other. And with those numbers, we can make something happen,” he said.

Delegates address the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Tristan Ahtone / Grist

In 2021, Canada passed a law that committed to aligning all government policies with UNDRIP, but Indigenous advocates at the UN said there’s still a long way to go for those rights to actually be upheld.

Ryan Fleming is from Attawapiskat First Nation in the remote Mushkegowuk territory of Northern Ontario and described his community as “frozen in time,” a symptom of the poverty he said is created by Canada.

In 2019, Attawapiskat Chief — then councilor — Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin and former chief Theresa Spence endured a 15-day hunger strike to secure change from provincial and federal governments to reenact a dormant task force to address the urgency of water quality in the community and other issues affecting the members.

“Until Canada addresses those structural conditions, then you can’t properly move forward with UNDRIP,” Fleming said.

In an emailed statement, Jennifer Cooper, spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, responded to concerns about Indigenous rights and highlighted the Crown’s efforts, which include an Indigenous advisory council and increased funding.

“As we implement the Building Canada Act and advance nation-building projects, we will honour our commitments under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, Duty to Consult, and Modern Treaties and Self-Government Agreements,” Cooper said. “We have made real progress together, but we know there are still barriers that slow things down. We’re improving how we work internally and bringing greater clarity to the process. We continue to develop rights-based agreements together with our partners in the true spirit of reconciliation, shared prosperity and partnership.”

The Province of British Columbia, which enacted legislation to enforce UNDRIP in 2019, has recently been under fire for seeking to suspend or amend parts of that law, after a court ruling found the province inconsistent with its own rules. The province has since backtracked, saying it would collaborate with First Nations leaders on a path forward.

“The inherent pre-existing rights of First Nations are part of, and are protected by, international human rights law,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak in a statement at the UN. “[UNDRIP] affirms First Nations rights as human rights. Neither Canada nor British Columbia can extinguish, amend or suspend First Nations’ human rights and remain a respected member of the international community.”

Fleming noted that discussions and reports at the UN don’t always mean action is being taken to follow UNDRIP. “In practice, you don’t see that coming to fruition,” he said. “We don’t need a new treaty. We don’t need a new agreement. We just need [Canada] to implement the original agreement. We need to honour that and then we can move forward.”

As the UNPFII heads into its second week, Indigenous people around the world continue to fight for survival and the rights outlined in UNDRIP. Ercilia Castañeda is Kichwa and the vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which represents 15 nationalities and 18 Indigenous Peoples.

“We cannot speak of health while there is tear gas in our communities, while 60 percent of the water sources in the Amazon are contaminated, while 40 percent of our children live with chronic malnutrition, while around 10,000 people have been murdered in 2025,” Castañeda said in statement at the permanent forum. “We cannot speak of human rights while the fabric of community life is being ripped apart.”

Castañeda called on Ecuador and international bodies like the UNPFII to strengthen and follow legal human rights frameworks.

Indigenous leaders also repeatedly highlighted the need for direct funding to support UNDRIP implementation. In a presentation, Aluki Kotierk, who is Inuk and the chair of the permanent forum, explained the importance of the UN Trust Fund for Indigenous Peoples, which she said “contributes directly to facilitating the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

But Kotierk also said support from member states for the fund is minimal. Kotierk noted that there are only three states who contribute annually to the fund.

New systems, including a policy marker system by the United Nations Development Programme, or UNDP, are set to help track that funds reach Indigenous Peoples directly. Indigenous leaders hope that funds for climate and development will reach them without getting delayed through state intermediaries, but the exact process is unclear. The UNDP did not immediately return a request for comment.

As Indigenous leaders from around the world demanded change on international and domestic levels, Kenneth Deer said that UNDRIP implementation should be a collaborative process.

“The relationship is about coexistence. It’s not about domination of Canada over Indigenous people,” he said .“What we need to offer is solutions, not just come to the UN and complain about Canada, but come to the United Nations with solutions.”

The UNPFII is set to run till the end of the week.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Nearly two decades after landmark Indigenous rights declaration, countries still aren’t complying on Apr 27, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

During infection, pathogens must adapt quickly to the conditions to thrive inside the body. A research team at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has uncovered how a key protein switches on the machinery that enables Leptospira pathogens to survive and cause disease. The findings provide new insights into how pathogens regulate their virulence and may open new avenues for therapeutic interventions.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Winds sweep across the world’s oceans every day, and harnessing that largely unused resource has the potential to provide abundant, clean and reliable energy. Experts widely agree that marine wind could play a vital role in reducing fossil fuel reliance and tackling climate change, while also bolstering energy security. “The beauty of it is that the technology is tried, tested, proven, and has scaled,” says Amisha Patel, head of secretariat at the Global Offshore Wind Alliance. “This is not just about climate, it’s about having energy independence for many nations and regions as well.” Tapping into only a tiny fraction of that overall potential could reap gigantic benefits. A 2025 paper found that utilizing even just 1% of the global area suitable for offshore wind could produce roughly 20% of current global electricity demand, and cut carbon emissions by more than 2.3 billion metric tons annually. “Our key finding is that a relatively small fraction of suitable ocean area could deliver substantial climate and energy benefits,” Yi Wen, a lead author on that study with the National University of Singapore (NUS), told Mongabay in an email. But today, marine wind remains almost entirely untapped, with only around 15,000 offshore turbines producing just over 80 gigawatts of electricity, and another 150 GW of offshore wind farms under development. In 2024, energy generation from these turbines was sufficient to power around 73 million households. Wind turbines off Guishan Island, Zhuhai, China. Image by Squids Z via Unsplash (Public domain). To date, the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

For most of their lives, plants get their energy from photosynthesis. But during the seed to seedling stage, when they can't absorb light just yet, they rely on other sources, like fatty acids. To process the fatty acids, plant cells, like human cells, rely on a membrane-bound compartment called the peroxisome. For people interested in studying the peroxisome, plant cells are an excellent model to use.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Researchers at University College Dublin have identified a genetic "switch" that determines the sex of cannabis plants, and found the same system may exist in hops. The study, published in New Phytologist, pinpoints a specific section of the X chromosome that influences whether cannabis plants develop as male, female, or both.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

The Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to develop a new tool for funding wetland conservation and restoration projects through verifiable "Coastal Resilience Assets." The value of these assets is based on the storm and flood protection benefits that the wetlands provide.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

Two years ago today, an intense heat wave engulfed much of Brazil. For five days at the end of April 2024, temperatures in the central and southern regions climbed to sweltering heights. Many affected were still reeling from another extreme heat wave that had walloped southern Brazil. Just the month before the heat index in Rio de Janeiro reached a staggering 144.1 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest in a decade.

The two events were part of a cycle of prolonged and severe periods of heat that hit one of the world’s largest agricultural powerhouses over several years. Yields of soy and corn, two of Brazil’s biggest commodities, fell in southeastern states like São Paulo. Peanuts, potatoes, sugarcane, and arabica coffee also suffered widespread losses. Droves of livestock pigs in the central-western region were afflicted with severe heat stress for the better part of a year. And when an atmospheric cold front was blocked by the prevailing heat dome and triggered devastating rainfall and flooding throughout the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, the supply chain and markets for pink shrimp were disrupted throughout Brazil.

Much of this data is documented in a new joint report released last Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Merging weather datasets with agricultural ones, the report traces the compounding effects of extreme heat on the global agricultural system and outlines how to produce food in a world where extreme heat is becoming a baseline.

In the report, Brazil is the sole country-level case study explored in detail; the country’s exports face outsize pressure from warming temperatures and the oscillating extremes of natural weather cycles El Niño and La Niña. But a few dozen other nations are mentioned in the 94-page document, too.

The authors cite how, in Chile, warming seas in 2016 prompted massive algae blooms that killed off an estimated 100,000 metric tons of farmed salmon and trout, creating the largest aquaculture mortality event in history. In the U.S.’s Pacific Northwest, when one of the strongest heat waves ever recorded struck in 2021, entire raspberry and blackberry harvests were lost, Christmas tree farms saw 70 percent timber volume declines, and the intersection of extreme heat, vegetative drying, and wildfires led to an increase of between 21 and 24 percent of forest area burned in North America that year. After a record heatwave hit India in 2022, wheat in over a third of Indian states fell anywhere between 9 and 34 percent, dairy animals afflicted with heat stress produced up to 15 percent less milk, and some cabbage and cauliflower yields were halved. And last spring in Kyrgyzstan’s Fergana mountain range, a region known for its year-round snow, spring temperatures rose 50 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the seasonal average — a bout of weather so unusual that it contributed to a locust outbreak and dramatic declines in cereal harvests.

Human-caused warming has already been increasing at an unprecedented rate. The past 11 years are also the 11 warmest years on record. “We’re not moving at a speed that is good enough,” said Martial Bernoux, senior natural resources officer at the FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Environment. “And we have, really, a residual risk that is increasing.”

On a high-emissions trajectory, much of South Asia, tropical Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Central and South America could experience as many as 250 days a year that are simply too hot to work outside by the close of the century, according to the report.

Dangerous exposure to heat is already an occupational crisis for much of the world’s agricultural workforce. A 2024 report by the International Labour Organization found that extreme temperatures had put more than 70 percent of the global workforce, or some 2.4 billion people, at high risk. Those findings spurred a call to action on extreme heat by António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in the summer of 2024. He urged governments and the international community to prioritize four areas: caring for the most vulnerable; stepping up protections for workers exposed to excessive heat; boosting resilience using data and science; and quickly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels.

Read Next

The war in Iran could plunge the world into hunger

Ayurella Horn-Muller

“Heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year,” said Guterres at the time. “That’s about 30 times more than tropical cyclones. We know what is driving it: fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change. And we know it’s going to get worse.”

According to Bernoux, the joint FAO-WMO analysis is a direct response to the UN Secretary-General’s call to action. “The UN said, ‘We have a problem,’” said Bernoux. “So FAO and WMO, we decided to work together to be able to reply to that.”

Naia Ormaza Zulueta, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia studying extreme heat and the agricultural workforce, questions whether their report focuses enough on the people who grow, harvest, and raise the world’s food.

“The diagnosis in this report is sharper than anything we’ve had before, and that matters,” said Zulueta, who calls it a breakthrough in perspective — one that underscores how climate change and food systems can no longer be studied in isolation. “The prescription is where the system hasn’t caught up.”

First, the worker exposure calculations omit both hourly and nighttime wet-bulb exposure; Zulueta argues that these finer-grained metrics capture the severity of heat exposure for outdoor workers better than daily averages — meaning that she thinks the number of days of dangerous heat identified in the report is likely an undercount.

The report’s recommendations on how the sector can best adapt also center entirely on crops, livestock, and ecosystems — such as planting earlier or later in the season, developing heat-tolerant breeds, and investing in large-scale irrigation systems. Direct recommendations for agricultural laborers, though, only appear in passing references to existing international agreements on worker safety and health adopted more than a decade ago. For instance, the FAO and WMO call for dramatically increasing global climate-related development finance for food systems and increasing early-warning systems to lessen extreme heat’s compounding risks, but no concrete roadmap is provided for how best to adapt food production in order to protect the billions of outdoor workers exposed to intensifying heat.

Perhaps the oversight, says Zulueta, is because UN agencies tasked with worker rights — like the International Labour Organization — weren’t involved in the report. Even so, she finds it hard to justify, given the UN Secretary-General’s own emphasis on protecting the workforce from escalating temperatures.

“The workers are present in the diagnosis, but they’re largely absent in the prescription,” Zulueta said. “It’s a little sad, to be honest with you. It almost feels like the human dimension is missing, and everything that comes with it.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The world is getting too hot to feed itself on Apr 27, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

A new study reveals how a remarkable group of plants on the Galápagos Islands developed their diverse leaf shapes—offering unique insight into evolution at the genetic level. A large international team of researchers has studied evolution in the plant group Scalesia, also known as the Galápagos giant daisies. The research was recently published in Nature Communications.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

South Africa's Limpopo province borders Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. It is one of the poorest provinces in the country. This is due to a combination of historical underdevelopment, a high unemployment rate, heavy reliance on government grants and a rural-based economy with limited industrial diversification.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.