The virus behind COVID-19 appears to have first leapt to humans from captive wildlife at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, and now a new study identifies specific animals that likely carried the virus. The new analysis – of metagenomic RNA data collected shortly after the market was shut down – also supports accumulating evidence […]
Tag: COVID-19
As ‘Zombie’ Deer Disease Spreads, Scientists Look for Answers
Late last year federal officials discovered the carcass of a mule deer buck near Yellowstone Lake in a remote region of Yellowstone National Park. Its cause of death was chronic wasting disease (CWD), experts said, making this the first confirmed death of an animal in the park from the disease. The discovery was alarming, but […]
Chimps are dying of the common cold. Is great ape tourism to blame?
There was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die. Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but normally, […]
Rebuilding from the Ashes: The Story of the 2020 California Wildfires
The year 2020 is one that most people would like to erase from their memories. Not only was the planet under the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, but 2020 was also the year that saw record-breaking wildfires in California. Record-breaking is probably the wrong word to use because it suggests something positive, but the 2020 […]