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GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Dr Karl puts his finger on the pulse of research that suggests your heart can become stronger if it runs out of sync for a short while before its rhythm is restored.

Between 1984 and 2009 the weight of female bears in Ontario fell by over 10% while climate change meant they had 30 fewer days a year to hunt seal on ice

Three decades of melting sea ice has led to significant weight loss among the world’s southernmost population of polar bears, new data from Canadian researchers suggests.

“It’s a red flag,” said Martyn Obbard, a scientist with the Ontario provincial government and co-author of a recently published study in the journal Arctic Science.

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FOSSIL FIND: A tiny arthropod from 430 million years ago dubbed the 'Kite Runner' stashed its young in individual capsules tethered to its body.

This video showcases how companies can partner with farmers to plant trees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and earn Australian carbon credit units through Emissions Reduction Fund projects.

This video showcases how companies can partner with farmers to plant trees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and earn Australian carbon credit units through Emissions Reduction Fund projects.

DARK ROLE OF RITUALS: Elaborate ritual killings such as being crushed under a newly built canoe and decapitation after being rolled off a house laid the foundations of class-based structures in modern societies.

Study finds protecting a single type of herbivorous fish could be crucial to the recovery of reefs from damage related to climate change

Limiting the take of just one type of fish could protect coral reefs around the world from the most serious immediate impacts of climate change, researchers have found.

Studying Caribbean coral reefs, Peter Mumby and colleagues from the University of Queensland found that enforcing a rule limiting the fishing of a single type of herbivorous fish – parrotfish – would allow coral reefs there to continue to grow, despite bleaching and other impacts associated with climate change.

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Disposal and decommissioning of plants in EU’s 16 nuclear nations outstrips available funds by €120bn, European commission study reveals

Europe is facing a €253bn bill for nuclear waste management and plant decommissioning which outstrips available funds by €120bn, according to a major stock-take of the industry by the European commission.

The sum breaks down into €123bn for the decommissioning of old reactors and €130bn for the management of spent fuel, radioactive waste and deep geological disposal processes.

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Leak in pipeline being built by energy giant Spectra could lead to shutdown – or worse – at the New York state power station, experts say

Across a narrow swath cut by bulldozers and chainsaws through the woods of Westchester County, New York, triangular yellow flags are clotheslined between pairs of trees. The flags trace the eventual path of the gas pipeline that the energy giant Spectra is building through the area, escorted at times by police and harried by local residents worried by its proximity to a decaying nuclear power plant.

If that pipeline leaks or breaks, say experts, its contents could detonate and destroy the switchyard that sits 400ft from the gas line. Entergy, which runs the Indian Point power station, said the plant could be quickly shut down in such an event. Nuclear engineer Paul Blanch is not so sure. Blanch, who has previously consulted for Entergy and now assists an organization calling for the pipeline to be stopped, said that assertion is a best-case scenario. In the worst case, he said, the reactors could melt down. And he believes Entergy and Spectra have not fully considered that worst-case scenario.

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Native wildlife and vegetation will benefit from the marriage of the science of environmental water management and local Aboriginal knowledge, as part of watering wetlands on Tar-Ru Lands near Wentworth New South Wales.

SMOKING RISK: Women who smoke while pregnant may alter the DNA of their developing foetus, according to a large international study of more than 6,000 women and children.

Long-tailed tit returns to the top 10 most commonly seen garden birds for the first time in seven years, results from the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch show

A mild winter has boosted the number of small birds visiting UK gardens, with the long-tailed tit returning to the top 10 most commonly seen species for the first time in seven years, according to results from the world’s largest garden wildlife survey.

Recorded sightings of the tiny, sociable tit rose by 44% on 2015 figures and the species was seen in more than a quarter of participants’ gardens. Other small garden bird species that are thought to have benefitted from the warmer weather include the great tit and coal tit.

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EXOPLANET MAPPING: Astronomers have, for the first time, mapped a nearby 'super-Earth' exoplanet to find that one hemisphere is almost completely molten rock, while the other half is almost completely solid.

HUMAN EVOLUTION: The disappearance of so-called hobbits on the Indonesian island of Flores is pushed back to 50,000 years ago after excavations revealed flaws in the original dating of the controversial species of primitive humans.

DROUGHT RISK: Extreme droughts could lead to widespread death of eucalypts from embolisms, say researchers.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Your life depends on the regular beat of your heart. Dr Karl explains how this mighty four-stage pump works.

HUMAN EVOLUTION: Interbreeding between Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans may have produced males with reduced fertility, an analysis of the genome of present-day people suggests.

With the ice cover down to 14.52m sq km, scientists now believe the Arctic is locked onto a course of continually shrinking sea ice

A record expanse of Arctic sea never froze over this winter and remained open water as a season of freakishly high temperatures produced deep – and likely irreversible – changes on the far north.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said on Monday that the sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 14.52m sq km (5.607m sq miles) on 24 March, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

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Herd ‘coming home’ under treaty between North American tribes that seeks to return bison from Canada to Montana

Descendants of a bison herd captured and sent to Canada more than a century ago will be relocated to a Montana Native American reservation next month, in what tribal leaders bill as a homecoming for a species emblematic of their traditions.

The shipment of animals from Alberta’s Elk Island national park to the Blackfeet reservation follows a 2014 treaty among tribes in the US and Canada. That agreement aims to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions once roamed.

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While the 21-year-old founder of the Ocean Cleanup Project has succeeded in raising over $2m for a device that would extract plastic from the ocean, critics say the high-cost initiative is misdirected

Last year, nonprofit foundation The Ocean Cleanup hit a milestone en route to its goal of deploying a large, floating structure to pull plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The organization issued a press release announcing it had completed a reconnaissance expedition that would pave the way for a June 2016 test of its prototype. With the help of $2.2m in crowdfunding, 21-year-old founder Boyan Slat announced his plans to deploy 100 kilometers of passive floating barriers in an effort to clean up 42% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s plastic pollution in 10 years.

Despite considerable online enthusiasm for the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They question whether the design will work as described and survive the natural forces of the open ocean, how it will affect sea life, and whether this is actually the best way to tackle the problem of ocean plastic – or merely a distraction from the bigger problem of pollution prevention. Many have also expressed concern about the lack of an environmental impact statement prior to such a large push for funding.

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