Let giant pandas go extinct, says leading conservationist

September 15th, 2009 MELBOURNE - Giant Pandas make bleat calls to attract potential mates, finds a new study. The study led by Dr.

September 14th, 2009 LONDON - Archaeologists have discovered teeth and bones from late Ice Age animals, including hyenas, deer and woolly rhinos at a cave in Devon, UK, which may yield clues as to why Neanderthals became extinct. According to a report by BBC News, the dig, organised by the University of Durham and the University of Sheffield, is part of a study into Neanderthals.

September 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have determined that the role of a predator, before humans colonized New Zealand about 750 years ago, was filled by a giant, extinct raptor known as Haast's eagle. Although the bones of Haast's eagle have been known for well over a century, the behavior of these giants has been a point of debate.

September 7th, 2009 LONDON - An expedition team has found a new species of giant rat in an extinct volcano in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, which at 82cm length, is as big as a cat. According to a report by BBC News, the creature, which has not yet been formally described, was discovered by an expedition team filming the BBC programme 'Lost Land of the Volcano'.

September 4th, 2009 TORONTO - Andromeda and Triangulum, the two galaxies closest to our own, collided two to three billion years ago, changing the galactic structure, according to evidence unearthed by astronomers. The collision appears to have plucked millions of stars from the Triangulum disk to form a faint stream visible in the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) data, says Larry Widrow, professor of physics and Astronomy at Queen's University.

August 14th, 2009 LONDON - A seabird thought to have been driven to extinction by hungry European sailors in the late 18th century has been rediscovered, in the laboratory. It turns out the 'extinct' species is actually a sub-species of a bird very much alive.

August 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a surprising finding, scientific sleuths have rediscovered an "extinct" bird living under a false name and wearing a mask. Native to small islands off Australia and New Zealand, the species, known as the Tasman booby, was dealt its first near fatal blow around A.D.

July 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have shown that when the magnitude 8 Sichuan earthquake struck southern China in May 2008, more than 23 percent of the pandas' habitat was destroyed in the area. The Sichuan region is designated as one of 25 global hotspots for biodiversity conservation.

July 27th, 2009 Pandas face uncertain future after China quakeBEIJING — About 35 pandas at a reserve in southwestern China face an uncertain future after nearly a quarter of their habitat was destroyed by last year's powerful earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people, according to a study published Monday. Large parts of Sichuan province — where most of the world's remaining wild pandas live — were devastated by the massive May 12 earthquake, which sent landslides crashing into river valleys and leaving 5 million homeless.

July 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, scientists have discovered that trees in New Zealand have evolved a camouflage defense mechanism to protect themselves from extinct giant birds, providing the first evidence of this strategy in plant life. "Plants are attacked by a bewildering array of herbivores and in response they have evolved a variety of defences to deter predators such as thorns and noxious chemicals," said lead researcher Dr Kevin Burns from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

July 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study of 30 million year old fossil 'mega-dung' from extinct giant South American mammals reveals evidence of complex ecological interactions and theft of dung-beetles' food stores by other animals. It is a well-known 'fact' that were it not for the dung-beetle, the world would be knee-deep in animal droppings, especially those of large herbivores like cows, rhinos and elephants which, because they eat more food, produce more waste.

June 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Dinosaurs, the largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, according to the latest research. Scientists have found that the original statistical model used to calculate dinosaur mass is flawed, which means that dinosaurs have been possibly oversized.

June 21st, 2009 LONDON - Tyrannosaurus rex, the best-known predatory species, may have been far more lithe than previously thought, researchers have discovered. In a new study, boffins have claimed that dinosaurs may have been much lighter and sleeker than earlier believed because of potential flaws in the equations used to calculate their weight, reports The Times.

June 17th, 2009 LONDON - An American researcher has shown that female giant pandas can tell one male's love calls from those of others, taking the first step towards proving that females among the animals use these bleats to choose their mates. Ben Charlton, a biologist at Zoo Atlanta, says that this finding attains significance as a gaining a better understanding of how females pick their mates might help zoos breed the notoriously picky and endangered animals.

January 12th, 2009 SYDNEY - Droppings of a giant extinct bird, buried beneath cave floors and rock shelters for millennia, have yielded a mine of information about pre-human New Zealand. Ancient DNA and palaeontology researchers from Universities of Adelaide, Otago and the New Zealand department of conservation came forward with their analyses of plant seeds, leaf fragments and DNA from the dried faeces (coprolites) to start building the first detailed picture of an ecosystem dominated by giant extinct species.