A cluster of whale and whale shark strandings across Indonesia – five in the past three weeks alone – has raised questions over whether such incidents are becoming more frequent, with experts pointing to a mix of environmental shifts, human activity and improved reporting as possible explanations.
On September 25, a whale shark became stranded and died on a beach in Aceh province, just days after a decomposed whale carcass was discovered in a mangrove in Riau province. Another whale was found...
On the edge of western China’s Taklamakan Desert, in a county where sand covers 90 per cent of the land, an unlikely harvest is heading to market: Australian freshwater crayfish.
As China begins its National Day “golden week” holiday, a farm in Maigaiti county, in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region’s Kashgar prefecture, is pulling 250 to 300kg (551 to 661lbs) of the premium crustaceans from its ponds every day.
Native to Australia’s rivers and streams, freshwater crayfish are now being raised...
Future settlers on Mars would need houses, but they must either spend huge sums transporting construction materials from Earth or use enormous amounts of energy to melt Martian soil into bricks.
Scientists in Hong Kong say they have developed a quick and low-cost “living” building material made from genetically engineered yeast, gelatin and sand that can be 3D printed under conditions simulating the Martian environment.
Their study, published online last month in Chem Circularity, an...
