Tag Archives: animals

UK Government: Online animal cruelty activity to be removed from social media platforms

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UK Government: Online animal cruelty activity to be removed from social media platforms. “Social media firms will be forced to remove online content facilitating animal torture in a further push to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. Under new proposals, social media platforms will be required to proactively tackle the illegal content and have it swiftly removed, or face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their global annual revenue.”

UC Davis: UC Davis Researchers Exploring Data and AI Tools for Animal Health Diagnosis and Treatment

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UC Davis: UC Davis Researchers Exploring Data and AI Tools for Animal Health Diagnosis and Treatment. “The rise of AI based technology may play an important role in human healthcare from diagnostics to treatment. Using a data-driven approach, AI may be able to help doctors analyze and assess diseases more efficiently. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, are now exploring ways to use AI for the benefit of animal health.”

When “cute” is cruel: Social media videos stoke loris pet trade, study says (Mongabay)

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Mongabay: When “cute” is cruel: Social media videos stoke loris pet trade, study says. “Conservationists are concerned that the popularity of social media videos depicting lorises as pets is stoking the illegal and often abusive pet trade, placing pressure on already flagging numbers in the wild.”

North Carolina State University: How Linked Data, Artificial Intelligence Could Help Animals

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North Carolina State University: How Linked Data, Artificial Intelligence Could Help Animals. “In a new paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, two researchers suggest artificial intelligence and the growing body of information online, which they call the ‘internet of animals,’ could empower scientists to make real-time predictions about the future of species amid climate change, diseases and more.”

KOLO (Nevada): Nevada launches website for kids to learn about zoonotic diseases

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KOLO (Nevada): Nevada launches website for kids to learn about zoonotic diseases. “One Health Nevada is an interactive website for kids to learn about how diseases spread between animals and humans and what people can do to keep themselves and animals healthy. The site is geared towards kids involved in 4-H, or those who own pets, livestock, enjoy hunting, fishing or being outdoors. They can also find health tips, activities and educational resources.”

North Carolina State University: New Animal Rights Network Oral Histories Digitized

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North Carolina State University: New Animal Rights Network Oral Histories Digitized. “The Animal Rights Network Oral History Collection has been digitized and is now available on the Special Collections Digital Collections website. These oral histories (transcripts included) are interviews with prominent figures in the animal rights and welfare movement, including Christine Stevens, Michael Fox, John Hoyt, and Roger Caras.”

WVXU: The Cincinnati Zoo is creating a massive behavioral database to better understand its animals

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WVXU: The Cincinnati Zoo is creating a massive behavioral database to better understand its animals. “Out of uniform and hidden from the animals, Cincinnati Zoo scientists are collecting massive amounts of information on its 400 species — like Huto the Komoto dragon, hippos Fiona and Fritz, and Nutmeg the fox — so they can live their best lives in Cincinnati.”

University of Sheffield: Toxic Twitter abuse could skew UK wildlife law

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University of Sheffield: Toxic Twitter abuse could skew UK wildlife law. “Scientists from the University of Sheffield and the University of Reading analysed hundreds of tweets about trophy hunting and found that seven per cent were abusive. This is a similar proportion to content on partisan topics on social media platforms known to highlight extreme viewpoints.”

Boing Boing: The cryptid complications of Wikipedia’s editing policies

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Boing Boing: The cryptid complications of Wikipedia’s editing policies. “This is (apparently) a great war simmering between Wikipedia editors and cryptid hunters. Cryptid enthusiasts, such as those who haunt r/Cryptozoology, accuse the open-source information website of being biased against their beloved beasts, dismissing such things as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster with pejorative descriptors of ‘pseudoscience’ (Or, worse — ‘folklore’).”

To move a manatee: Museum catalogs skeletal specimen (North Carolina Coastal Federation)

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North Carolina Coastal Federation: To move a manatee: Museum catalogs skeletal specimen. “It took a lot of collaboration to get an 800-pound manatee carcass that washed up on a beach in Kill Devil Hills in early December 2021 to Lisa Gatens, the mammalogy collection manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. The carcass was delivered in mid-December 2021 and buried in manure to decompose, leaving just the bones. After about a year, the bones were dug up, cleaned, put in a freezer to get rid of any critters, cleaned again and, as of last week, each bone was being entered into the mammalogy collections catalog.”

News In Brief: UVA Offers New, Free Book On Poisonous, Venomous Animals In Virginia (University of Virginia)

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University of Virginia: News In Brief: UVA Offers New, Free Book On Poisonous, Venomous Animals In Virginia. “To help Virginians avoid poisonings from encounters with wildlife, a reference guide to 32 poisonous and venomous animals that live in Virginia is now available as a free, downloadable book.” There’s also a free book available about poisonous plants in Virginia.

Vietnam+: Rich biodiversity database debuts

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Vietnam+: Rich biodiversity database debuts. “A web portal collecting data of natural resources and wildlife conservation in Da Nang City has been introduced. It will provide information, documents, photographs and statistics from nature reserves in Son Tra and Ba Na-Nui Chua, as well as a special-use forest of South Hai Van in the central city.” I took a quick look and it seems that the site officially launches tomorrow. I didn’t see an English option but Google Translate did okay.

BBC: Londoner solves 20,000-year Ice Age drawings mystery

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BBC: Londoner solves 20,000-year Ice Age drawings mystery. “A London furniture conservator has been credited with a crucial discovery that has helped understand why Ice Age hunter-gatherers drew cave paintings. Ben Bacon analysed 20,000-year-old markings on the drawings, concluding they could refer to a lunar calendar. It led to a specialist team proving early Europeans made notes about the timing of animals’ reproductive cycles.”

New York Times: The Nicest Place Online? It Might Just Involve Identifying Sea Slugs.

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New York Times: The Nicest Place Online? It Might Just Involve Identifying Sea Slugs.. “As civil discourse online and off increasingly proves elusive, a website devoted to identifying plants and animals may be teaching humans how to get along.”

Exclusive: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal probe, employee backlash over animal tests (Reuters)

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Reuters: Exclusive: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal probe, employee backlash over animal tests. “Elon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations.”