Biodiversity

"Releasing genetically modified, spermless male mosquitoes into the wild could in future help to prevent malaria transmission and reduce the chances of large outbreaks of the killer disease, British scientists said on Monday."

"Conservation groups asked an appeals court on Monday to strike down a move by Congress to strip more than 1,500 wolves in Idaho and Montana of federal endangered species protections."

"Wyoming and the U.S. Department of Interior have reached an agreement that would end federal protection for wolves in the state and allow hunters to kill more than 50% of those living outside Yellowstone National Park."

"Wild horses on the vast rangelands of Wyoming can continue to roam free, for now, after the U.S. government's Bureau of Land Management postponed a planned roundup, horse advocates said on Tuesday."

"It's been called a crisis in amphibian biology: more than a third of amphibian species are at risk of extinction. Habitat loss and climate change are both causes, but so is an invasive disease that's been called the smallpox of the amphibian world. Researchers from D.C., Virginia, and Maryland recently traveled to Panama to try to help limit the effects of the disease."

"As long as American Indians have lived in the Pacific Northwest, they have looked to a jawless, eel-like fish for food."

The good news is that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, expected to be bigger this year because of high runoff and the BP spill, did not set a record for size. The bad news is that oxygen levels in the dead zone that did develop this year are extremely low.

The former Rocky Flats federal nuclear plant was supposedly cleaned up before it was repurposed as a National Wildlife Refuge. But lack of money and invasive plants may keep plutonium worries alive.