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Wild dogs that live in southern cypress swamps and are called Carolina Dogs or “yaller dogs,” may be descended from the first dogs to live in North America, according to I. Lehr Brisbin. He studies the world’s remaining wild, ancient dogs, such as the Australian dingo, which may have come to Australia along with the original human inhabitants thousands of years ago. When he noticed a wild dog that had been captured and put in the dog pound near his home in South Carolina, he thought, “You look like a dingo. I wonder how many of you other guys are out there that look like dingos?” He found a number of these animals living in secluded areas far from humans or domestic dogs.read more

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Much of the Earth’s frozen north will be completely defrosted by the end of the century, according to recent studies. New measurements of the sea ice around the North Pole show it’s been reduced by about 4% per cent a decade. If the warming trend continues, Arctic sea ice could eventually disappear almost completely during the summer. This would be tough on the 22,000 polar bears that live there, since they need ice to stand on while they hunt for seals. Polar bears cold be wiped out in the wild by the next century.
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A highly contagious flu-like virus, which quickly turns into pneumonia, started in Asia and has spread rapidly through hospitals in Hong Kong and Hanoi. It’s so severe that the World Health Organization sent an expert to Hong Kong to try to identify the virus, and France and Japan have sent medical experts to Vietnam. The source of the outbreak is linked to the death of an 48-year-old American doctor who arrived in Hanoi from Shanghai suffering from severe respiratory problems. When his condition got worse, he was transferred to a hospital in Hong Kong, where he later died. Now there’s evidence that the mystery virus has spread to Canada, meaning it’s headed our way. A staff member of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong sent us an update.read more

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Solar radiation on Mars is so intense that it could endanger astronauts, according to NASA. This radiation also means that, despite the presence of water, it’s unlikely any life could survive there. The high radiation levels were measured by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Cary Zeitlin of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, says, “[Mars life] would have to be pretty robust against all kinds of environmental horrors.”
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