Katherine Tweed

Katherine Tweed grew up wandering the Audubon wildlife sanctuary across the street from her Massachusetts home, spotting everything from beavers to blue herons. Recently, she left reporting on human health to focus on writing about the health of the environment and creatures other than ourselves. She is pursuing a Masters degree in New York University's Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program.


Katherine Tweed's blog

You might want to start planning your World Environment Day now. “Didn’t that happen in April?” you might ask. Nope, that’s Earth Day. World Environment Day, which will be celebrated on June 5, was started by the United Nations to raise awareness about the plight of our planet.

Categories:

Right Whales Return

News is starting to look up for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. First there were new shipping speed rules passed in 2008 to slow large boats that plow through their waters. Now, a few have reappeared in an area where they were thought to be extinct.

Don’t tick off a mockingbird because chances are, it will remember the slight. Not only will it keep tabs when you pass by, it might just retaliate. That’s because mockingbirds can single out humans that have done them wrong, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Birds are no wallflowers. Instead they might be the life of the party, according to two studies that found parrots can tap their feet and bob their heads in time with the music.

Researchers from Harvard University combed through more than 1,000 videos of dancing animals and found that only vocal mimics, including 14 species of parrots, can truly rock to the beat.

duck flock

There’s more going on this weekend than Mother’s Day. International Bird Migration Day (IMBD) is being celebrated on Saturday May 9 from Central America to Canada.

It all began in 1993 by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology to raise awareness about the journey that the birds make between their summer and winter habitats.

Categories:

iPhone Citizen Science

shadow of picture with iPhone
specialkrb on Flickr

Go ahead and throw that iPhone into your daypack, you might just be part of a scientific revolution.

Scientists at the Smithsonian, the University of Maryland and Columbia University are developing an iPhone app that will let users snap photos of leaves to get instant identification of the plant. But wait, it does more. The app will then beam that information to a database where scientists could use it for research.

white-tailed deer

Lead bullets can be deadly to endangered California condors, but a new study finds humans ingest the same toxin when eating game animals shot with lead ammunition.

People who eat venison from animals that were killed by lead-based bullets are at risk for exposure, even when the meat has been processed, according to a study from The Peregrine Fund and Washington State University.

The National Park Service received a $750 million shot in the arm yesterday to fund hundreds of projects and create jobs across the country. It may seem like a drop in the stimulus bucket, but the allocation is part of a larger $3 billion that the Interior Department is investing in the economy as part of the recovery.

Willie Hensley grew up in Kotzebue, nearly 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle in northwest Alaska. He has spent his life working for rights for Alaska’s native populations, which often meant fighting for the environment that so many villages depend on for survival.

Syndicate content RSS Feed