Massachusetts removed a dam that had blocked the Town River for more than 100 years; the project reopened 10 miles of river and 354 acres of spawning habitat for migratory fish

High Street Dam Removal in the Taunton River Watershed Demolition crews in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, have completed the removal of the High Street Dam, taking down a 12.5-foot-high and 80-foot-wide concrete barrier that had blocked the Town River for more than a century. The removal has reopened 10 miles (16 kilometres) of continuous river channel and…

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In 2026, scientists gave bumblebees a puzzle they had never seen before; some invented their own way to reach a hidden reward |

Representative Image of a bumblebee solving a task with a ball in an experimental arena (AI-generated image) More than a century ago, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted experiments that changed how scientists thought about animal intelligence. In one of his best-known demonstrations, chimpanzees were faced with food placed out of reach and objects they could potentially…

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Galveston Bay Waterbirds: In the 1930s, Texas built 3 bird-nesting islands from dredged mud; all vanished, but one rebuilt 4.5-acre island now hosts more than 2,500 nesting pairs

Dickinson Bay lost its charm over the decades. The small estuarine pocket on Galveston Bay’s western shore once hosted thriving colonies of waterbirds on three dredged islands. But then the islands completely vanished. During the 1980s and 1990s, subsidence, erosion, and a string of tropical storms swept the islands beneath the water. And with them…

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Meet Ishanvi Sakharpe, the Virginia student who built Dolphin Guard to help protect dolphins from dangerous human activity |

Image(s): Young Science Lab/Canva Ishanvi Sakharpe is a Virginia student using science and technology to address a problem affecting one of the ocean’s most recognisable animals. Her project, Dolphin Guard, was created with the aim of helping protect dolphins from dangerous human activity in marine environments. The young innovator’s work has now earned recognition through…

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Oysters can carry a bacterium that can be deadly to humans without getting sick; scientists found how it survives inside them |

PC: By Taishonambu/Wikipedia Oysters can carry a type of bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes deadly infections in people, yet the shellfish can carry the microbe without showing the same kind of illness. The organism is Vibrio vulnificus, an estuarine bacterium that can become closely associated with American oyster tissues. Researchers have found that…

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A Spanish vineyard has gone more than 20 years without irrigation or pesticides; its cover-cropped topsoil now has over twice the organic matter of nearby tilled soil

Representative Image (AI-generated) For more than two decades, the soil between rows of grapevines in a Spanish vineyard has remained covered with spontaneous vegetation instead of being repeatedly tilled. The unusual approach was associated with a striking difference beneath the vines: soil managed with long-term vegetation cover contained more than twice as much organic matter…

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An English dumping ground for canal dredgings was restored as wetland; black-necked grebes rose from 4 breeding pairs to 35 in two years, and it now holds 64% of the UK population

Woolston Eyes in Cheshire recorded 35 breeding pairs of black-necked grebes in 2025 (Photos: RSPB) A former dumping ground for dredged material from the Manchester Ship Canal has been transformed into a wetland. The wetlland has now become the most important breeding site in the UK for the rare black-necked grebe.According to the Royal Society…

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China covered 40% of sea cucumber ponds with solar panels; younger animals spent 12 fewer days in summer inactivity |

Solar panels are usually associated with electricity, but a study in China has found that they can also change the summer conditions inside sea cucumber ponds. Researchers examined ponds fitted with photovoltaic panels and found that the shade reduced the amount of light reaching the water and lowered its temperature. The cooler conditions were linked…

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Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Dark energy, exoplanets and black holes: What Nasa’s new Roman telescope will explore

The launch of Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was posted by @NASARoman on X. Nasa has launched its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a mission to investigate dark matter and dark energy, study black holes and search for planets beyond our solar system. The agency expects Roman’s surveys to uncover roughly 100,000 new exoplanets.The…

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In the early 1990s, fewer than 1,000 threatened chum salmon returned to this Washington watershed; recent returns average 32,600 a year as a $9.7 million river restoration nears completion

chum salmon Representative image In the early 1990s, fewer than 1,000 threatened summer-run chum salmon made it back to the Big Quilcene River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula each year. Decades of logging, road building and habitat degradation had left the river choked with sediment, its gravel spawning beds buried and its side channels disconnected. Today,…

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