Photo via lucaboldrini69 Around 250 million people are bitten by venomous snakes each year causing not only deaths, but also nearly 300,000 amputations annually – most of which could be avoided if anti-venom were on hand. But in many areas there’s a shortage – and even impending failure of supplies – as anti-venom stocks run short. The World Health Organization is hoping to solve the issue by launching an online snake guide, showing where the poisonous species that do the most damaged are located, and what they look like, so that antivenom can be stocked in the right pl… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Running Out of Snake Venom! Guide Launched To Solve Antivenom Shortage

Up close with a Chytrid infection. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons “Happiness is like smallpox,” Gustav Flaubert once wrote, “if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.” Indeed, before the widespread distribution of the vaccine, smallpox was one of the leading causes of death in the Western World. Most vulnerable, were the naive populations—those which had never before been exposed to the virus. Today, a similarly behaving disease is

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New Insights into Deadly Amphibian Disease Could Help Preserve Global Populations

Photo via Flickr Marine protected areas are proven to work for rehabilitating a habitat , and b ringing a livelihood back to the people living near that area. So why is only about 1% of the ocean protected as a marine reserve? Enric Sala takes us back in time during this TED talk to explore what a pristine reef is supposed to look like, and then expl… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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They’re Worth Big Bucks, So Why Are Marine Preserves So Rare?

Photos by Brian Merchant As just about everyone around the Gulf holds their breath, waiting to see if that oil slick the size of Maryland will hit their part of the shoreline, concern continues to mount for the safety of the wildlife. Yesterday, I took a boat out to Cat Island, which is a thriving bird habitat — it’s also the island right next door to Dauphin, where oily tar balls are coming ashore and where I found hundreds of dead fish washing up onto its beaches . These birds, as you’ll see in the videos below, would be gravely threatened if the isl… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Up Close and Personal With the Birds Threatened by the Gulf Oil Spill (Photos + Video)

Photo via lemuelinchrist Bats have an incredible ability to navigate using echolocation, weaving their way around obstacles and finding prey based on the bouncing around of the sounds they emit. Engineers and biologists from the Universities of Strathclyde and Leeds in Britain have decided it’s well worth looking in to just how they do it so that the technique can be employed by humans for everything from robotic vehicles to testing structures for flaws. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Researchers Decode Bat Sonar to Improve Everything from Buildings to Robots

Image credit: Peak Moment TV From backyard permaculture to a young couple downsizing to live simply , Peak Moment TV has shared a variety of different approaches to sustainable living. Their latest episode is a visit to a four acre homestead in a town called Rough and Ready (yes, really!) in California. But vegans be warned – you’re unlikely to dig Mark Cooper’s views on the role of animals in… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Eating Your Friends: Homesteading with Animals (Video)

Along Korea’s 155-mile-long demilitarized zone. Photo by Choi Byung Kwan via CNN . Environmentalists cheered the March announcement that North Korea and South Korea would work together to create an ecological corridor out of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). But few, if any, global conservationists have actually seen what kinds of natural habitats and wild animals the 155-mile-long and 2-mile-wide buffer zone co… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Rare Glimpse at the Wild Nature Inside Korea’s DMZ

Nobody likes being beaten about the head with the eco-stick. As many of us have experienced, railing against friends and family about the state of the planet rarely produces favourable results, or in fact any result at all. That’s why TreeHugger is a fan of the beautiful, engaging and well designed message – we find these are the ones that get through. It’s no surprise then that TreeHugger’s very own Petz Scholtus has created a series of products which … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Cute Animal Bulletin Boards Deliver a Serious Reminder

Image via YouTube video It’s no question that animals – particularly birds – are being severely impacted by the Deepwater oil leak. The oil has already reached shorelines, and marine… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Bird Washing Machine Removes Oil in 7 Minutes (Video)

photo: Stewart Butterfield via flickr The bulk of the focus on the plight of the bluefin tuna has been on the Atlantic population. Understandable considering that at current fishing levels the iconic species will be extinct within a couple of years. But a new study, reported on in the Mainichi Daily News , shows that Pacific bluefin are being critically overfished as well…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Pacific Bluefin Tuna Population Shrinking at ‘Alarming Rates’ Due to Continued Overfishing