biologist

Flying into the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll appears out of the vast blue Pacific as a tiny oasis of coral-fringed land with pristine white sand beaches that are teeming with life. But on the ground, there’s a different scene: plastic, pollution and death. With virtually no predators, Midway is a haven for many species of seabirds and is...

The search for the final victim of a boat fire off the Southern California coast has been suspended until early next week because of gusty winds and rough seas.

Family and friends converged on Southern California to learn the fates of their loved ones after a commercial scuba boat erupted in flames off the coast near Santa Cruz Island on Labor Day. Thirty four people died in the tragedy.

Environmental groups are hoping a rare bug found only along Delaware’s southern coast will become the first firefly on the federal government’s endangered species list.

On Sunday morning a group of animal-lovers will march a mile down one of Havana’s main thoroughfares waving placards calling for an end to animal cruelty in Cuba. Short, seemingly simple, the march will write a small but significant line in the history of modern Cuba. The socialist government is explicitly permitting a public march unassociated with any part of...

The Huasao wetland in the heart of the bygone Incan Empire languished for years as a wasteland that locals used as their dump. Cleaned up and given a second life, it’s now attracting droves of tourists lured by magical figures plucked straight from Hollywood movies. Towering statues of Ents — trees that walk and talk in the “Lord of the...

Tropical lizards have a stick-to-itiveness in high wind that puts TV weather reporters to shame. Now we know why, thanks in part to a high-powered leaf blower. Hurricanes Irma and Maria put a group of little lizards to the test, and scientists were perfectly positioned to see which anoles survived and why. Then, Harvard researchers cranked up the leaf blower...

When you weigh all life on Earth, billions of humans don’t amount to much compared to trees, earthworms or even viruses. But we really know how to throw what little weight we have around, according to a first-of-its-kind global census of the footprint of life on the planet. Humans only add up to about one ten-thousandth of the life on...

Worried about catching a cold or the flu on an airplane? Get a window seat, and don’t leave it until the flight is over.

A Maine woman who prepared a salad says she realized after a couple of bites her fork was stuck in a 3-inch lizard, minus the tail.

Pope Francis denounced femicides and other gender-based crimes that have turned Latin America into the most violent place on Earth for women, calling Saturday for legislation to protect them and a new cultural mindset as he visited one of Peru’s most dangerous parts. At a Marian prayer in the northern seaside city of Trujillo, Francis called women, mothers and grandmothers...

Pope Francis stopped his motorcade to help an injured police officer during a procession in Chile. The police officer was thrown from her horse when the Popemobile passed it.

A marine biologist believes a humpback whale shielded her from a 15-foot tiger shark in the South Pacific. Nan Hauser said she didn’t understand the actions of the 25-ton whale that she met face-to-face in the Cook Islands. Then she saw the shark. She’s heard on a video telling the massive mammal, “I love you, too!” The encounter took place...

Felipe Rodriguez says he thought he was hallucinating when an eagle snatched his sister’s little white dog from her yard, flapped its massive wings and disappeared over the trees. Did he really just see that? He had. Zoey the 8-pound Bichon Frise was gone, taken by a hungry raptor Tuesday afternoon not 50 feet from his sister’s house on the...

Scott Judd trained his camera lens on the white dot in the distance. As he moved up the Lake Michigan shoreline, the speck on a breakwater came into view and took his breath away: it was a snowy owl, thousands of miles from its Arctic home. “It was an amazing sight,” said Judd, a Chicago IT consultant. “It’s almost like...

The future of the coyotes that roam forests, cities and suburbs from Newfoundland to Virginia could hinge on the animals becoming the “wolves” of the East Coast. And humans better get used to them.

The New York State Health Department says it will enhance and expands its surveillance and education efforts to safeguard New Yorkers from tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease and more rare, potentially deadly conditions.

Wild turkeys are chasing and attacking people in several Stamford neighborhoods, and the problem’s gotten so bad that some residents are afraid to leave their homes, according to reports.

A robot zaps and vacuums up venomous lionfish in Bermuda. A helicopter pelts Guam’s trees with poison-baited dead mice to fight the voracious brown tree snake. A special boat with giant winglike nets stuns and catches Asian carp in the U.S. Midwest. In the fight against alien animals that invade and overrun native species, the weird and wired wins. “Critters...