• Papped snaffling in the jungle, a striking set of photos reveal the secret lives of Amazonian crop-raiding animals.

  • Accurate numbers are the cat’s pyjamas when it comes to solving the current cat population crisis. But measuring the feline population has been difficult, until now.

  • In the future of wildlife tracking, sea otters have their own social network.

    Whereas we might carry cell phones or tablets, each sea otter has a small, solar-powered tag clipped carefully to one of its flippers. When the sea otters gather to nap at the ocean’s surface, their tags boot up, and check in with one another. Who else did the sea otter interact with today, where, and when?

  • In a study published today in the journal Nature, astronomers from MIT and Arizona State University report that a table-sized radio antenna in a remote region of western Australia has picked up faint signals of hydrogen gas from the primordial universe.

  • A University of Calgary study of seasonal air pollution will be of cold comfort to thousands of Calgarians living south of the Bow River: that crisp, wintry air they’re breathing in is the worst in the city.

  • The ocean is changing around the world—less oxygen, warmer water, higher acidity. The ability to quantify and observe those changes has never been more important, says Maia Hoeberechts, a scientist with the University of Victoria’s world-leading Ocean Networks Canada (ONC).

  • As far as anyone can tell, the cold-water crayfish Faxonius eupunctus makes its home in a 30-mile stretch of the Eleven Point River and nowhere else in the world. According to a new study, the animal is most abundant in the middle part its range, a rocky expanse in southern Missouri – with up to 35,000 cubic feet of chilly Ozark river water flowing by each second.

  • Wind and solar power could generate most but not all electricity in the United States, according to an analysis of 36 years of weather data by Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira, and three Carnegie-affiliated energy experts: Matthew Shaner, Steven Davis (of University of California Irvine), and Nathan Lewis (of Caltech).

  • Access to wood fuels for cooking must be considered when formulating policy to deal with food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, according to researchers who advocate expanding the effort to improve wood-fuel systems and make them more sustainable.

  • People who swim, bathe or take part in water sports in the sea are substantially more likely to experience stomach bugs, ear aches and other types of illness than those who do not.