Endangered hamster-sized deer born in zoo

A baby Java mouse-deer - one of the smallest hoofed animals in the world - has been born at a zoo in southern Spain.

The newborn deer is "no bigger than a hamster" and weighs about 100 grams, staff at Bioparc Fuengirola tell the El Pais newspaper. Adult Java mouse-deer are rarely bigger than rabbits or weigh more than 1kg (2.2lb).

They are also known to be fiercely intelligent, and the species represents wisdom in many local legends in its
native Java.

The future of the species is threatened by massive deforestation in South East Asia and the replacement of
jungles with oil palm plantations.

Japan is to stop its program of whaling for "scientific research"

The UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the Japanese government must halt its whaling
programme in the Antarctic.It agreed with Australia, which brought the case in May 2010, that the programme was not for scientific research as claimed by Tokyo.

Japan said it would abide by the decision but added it "regrets and is deeply disappointed by the decision".
Reading out the judgement on Monday, Presiding Judge Peter Tomka said the court had decided, by 12 votes to four, that Japan should withdraw all permits and licenses for whaling in the Antarctic and refrain from issuing any new ones.It said Japan had caught some 3,600 minke whales since its current programme began in 2005, but the scientific output was limited.

Japan signed up to a moratorium on whaling in 1986, but continued whaling in the north and south Pacific under provisions that allowed for scientific research. Norway and Iceland rejected the provision and continued commercial whaling.

The meat from the slaughtered whales is sold commercially in Japan.

Mineral hints at bright blue rocks deep in the Earth

Minerals preserved in a diamond from a 100 million year old Kimberlite found in Brazil have revealed hints of the bright blue rocks that exist deep within the Earth.It also provides the first direct evidence that there may be as much water trapped in those rocks as there is in all the oceans.

The diamond contains minerals that formed as deep as 600km down and that have significant amounts of water trapped within them.

Diamonds, brought to the Earth's surface in violent eruptions of deep volcanic rocks called Kimberlites,
provide a tantalising window into the deep Earth.

The diamond contained a mineral, Ringwoodite, that is only thought to form between 410km and 660km beneath the Earth's surface, showing just how deep some diamonds originate. While Ringwoodite has previously been found in meteorites, this is the first time a terrestrial Ringwoodite has been seen. But more extraordinarily, researchers found that the mineral contains about 1% water.

While this sounds like very little, because ringwoodite makes up almost all of this immense portion of the
deep Earth, it adds up to a huge amount of deep water - up to several times the amount in the Earth's Oceans.

Elephants recognise Human voices

Elephants are able to differentiate between ethnicities and genders, and can tell an adult from a child - all
from the sound of a human voice.This is according to a study in which researchers played voice recordings to wild African elephants.

According to Prof McComb who led the study, "If you give a Masai man a lift in your car, you can see the
elephants behave in a different way around you. "They're much more wary of the car and you see a lot of smelling and listening."

Prof McComb wanted to find out if the animals used their very acute sense of hearing to identify a potential threat from humans.The scientists recorded Masai and then Kamba (agriculturalists) men, women and children saying, in their own language, "look, look over there, a group of elephants is coming".

When the team played recordings of these different voices through a camouflaged loudspeaker, they found that elephant family groups reacted more fearfully in response to the voice of a Masai man, than to a Kamba man's voice - retreating and bunching together defensively.And the adult male Masai voices triggered far more of these defensive reactions than the voices of women or boys.

Satellites are being used to track baby Loggerhead Turtles

Satellites are tracking tagged baby loggerhead turtles to find out where they go in their early years.
The babies are tracked from leaving the US coastal waters as they head off into the Atlantic Ocean. It appears they spend a long time in the Sargasso Sea, possibly living in amongst floating mats of Sargassum seaweed.

The tags fall off after about 220 days

Other data suggests that they travel in a circle born along by the North Atlanic Sea currents and get as far as the Azores and Cape Verde before heading back to the Gulf of Mexico

Hopes to release Asian Vultures back into the Wild in 2016

After the devastation wrought by a drug on Asian vulture populations, a project hopes to begin releasing captive-bred birds into the wild by 2016.

The Saving Asia's Vultures from Extinction (Save) programme says it plans to release up to 25 birds into a 30,000-sq-km drug-free "safe zone". It then wants to establish many more and bigger safe zones.

Diclofenac - used by vets on cattle - was identified as causing a crash in vulture numbers and banned by India after the population dropped by 96%.

But, says Save, the version for human use is still given illegally to cattle.Much work is being done to educate local farmers into using safer alternatives

Diclofenac was banned for use by vets and farmers in 2006 because of its effect on vultures that feed on livestock carcasses. It either causes Kidney failure or makes them infertile

Vulures are essential to clean up carcasses that would otherwise rot and spread disease

Blue Diamond found in South Africa's Cullinan Mine

A rare blue diamond has been discovered in a mine in South Africa.

The 29.6-carat stone was recovered by Petra Diamonds at its Cullinan mine, about 40km (25 miles) north-east of Pretoria.

"This stone is one of the most exceptional stones recovered at Cullinan during Petra's operation of the mine," the company said.

Petra unearthed a 25.5 carat blue diamond which sold for $16.9m (£10.3m) in 2013.

Cullinan mine has produced hundreds of large stones and is famed for its production of blue diamonds - among the rarest and most highly coveted of all diamonds.

Uranium Mining in Tanzania

The government of Tanzania is pushing ahead with uranium mining in a section of the Selous. Serengeti Watch reported,

“While authorities say the plan will affect less than 1% of the reserve, dozens of environmental groups around the world are outraged. They say the mine will produce 60 million tons of radioactive and poisonous waste during its 10-year lifespan, and up 139 million tons if a projected extension of the mine is implemented.

According to Uranium Network, “the radioactive wastes pose a serious threat to Selous Game Reserve which is home to the world’s largest elephant population and other wildlife. No proven methods exist to keep the radioactive and toxic slush and liquids from seeping into surface waters, aquifers or spreading with the dry season wind into the Reserve.”

Arctic Summer Sea Ice volume increased

The bounce back in the extent of sea ice in the Arctic this summer was reflected also in the volume of ice.
Data from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft suggests there were almost 9,000 cu km of ice at the end of this year's melt season. This is close to 50% more than in the corresponding period in 2012.

But scientists caution against reading too much into one year's "recovery". "Although the recovery of Arctic sea ice is certainly welcome news, it has to be considered against the backdrop of changes that have occurred over the last few decades," said Prof Andy Shepherd of University College London, UK. "It's estimated that there were around 20,000 cu km of Arctic sea ice each October in the early 1980s, and so today's minimum still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years,"

Yellowstone Volcano even more Colossal than we knew

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US is far larger than was previously thought, scientists report.

A study shows that the magma chamber is about 2.5 times bigger than earlier estimates suggested.The study team found the cavern stretches for more than 90km (55 miles), is up to 30km wide, and contains 200-600 cubic km of molten rock. It Reaches depths of between 2km and 15km (1 to 9 miles).

If the Yellowstone supervolcano were to blow today, the consequences would be catastrophic. Major eruptions happened 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago.

The last one sent ash across the whole x6 of North America, and affected the planet’s climate.