Above all, science is a collaborative enterprise, where researchers working together can span the continents. Increasingly, nonspecialists—citizen scientists—are pitching in as well. Whale.FM—a collaborative effort of Scientific American, Zooniverse and the research institutions WHOI, TNO, the University of Oxford and SMRU—lets citizen scientists help marine researchers who are studying what whales are saying. (You can [...]

The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes an all-too-rare victory: The Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) has been upgraded from the Endangered category to Vulnerable. This is quite an achievement, because the species was extinct in the wild just a few decades ago. The last wild Arabian Oryx was shot in [...]

One fifth of the world’s vertebrates are threatened with extinction. That’s the word from the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity this week in Nagoya, Japan, where a team of 174 scientists presented an assessment of the world’s at-risk vertebrate species. According to the study, published in the October 28 [...]

With rhinoceros poaching in Africa approaching an all-time high, one nature preserve owner has had enough. Ed Hern, owner of the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve near Johannesburg, South Africa, is experimenting with injecting cyanide into his rhinos’ horns. He believes the poison will not harm the rhinos, because there are no blood vessels in [...]

Illegal trade in endangered species continues to grow around the world. How big is the problem? Here are 10 major cases that have hit the media in just the past week: Six pallets containing 765 kilograms of elephant tusks worth an estimated $1.2 million were seized in Thailand July 13. The shipment contained 117 tusks, [...]

Last year 17 Florida panthers (Felis concolor coryi) were killed when they were struck by vehicles, an all-time high and a terrible blow to one of North America’s most endangered mammals. Only 100 or so panthers remain in Florida, and the species shows signs of heavy inbreeding due to its limited population. Panthers are already [...]

Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) may be one of the world’s cuter critters, but that doesn’t mean they have it easy. Not only have koala populations become heavily fragmented due to habitat loss, they face numerous threats that they never encountered before: household cats and dogs frequently kill koalas; hundreds die every year after being run over [...]

On Friday, March 11, Japan was rocked by an earthquake. People were displaced, a nuclear reactor was in trouble, and the world watched as a tsunami flooded Japan, threatened the islands of the Pacific, and ultimately hit the western coasts of North and South America. Chris Rowan pointed out that “Very little of the devastation [...]

What responsibilities do filmmakers have in terms of scientific accuracy? Usually, I argue that filmmakers are storytellers first, and while scientific accuracy (or plausibility) can often support a narrative, the first responsibility of the filmmaker is to weave a captivating tale. But what happens when the film (or TV series) in question is overtly scientific [...]