Wild horses, bison and other big-hoofed animals once roamed freely in much of Europe. Now they are transforming a former military base outside the Czech capital in an ambitious project to improve biodiversity. Where occupying Soviet troops once held exercises, massive bovines called tauros and other heavy beasts now munch on the invasive plants that took over the base years ago. The animals are turning the former Milovice military base 35 kilometers (22 miles) northeast of Prague into a miniature version of the steppe that once rolled across the European continent.  With some species wiped out in the wild, the animals now have the chance to live together again in relative freedom. Conservationists deployed them at Milovice five years ago. Now they hope to enlarge the sanctuary by one third to 360 hectares (890 acres) this year. The animals’ task is to improve biodiversity among local plants by eating invasive ones while saving endangered species, said Dalibor Dostal, the director of European Wildlife, an organization behind the project. “It’s a miraculous change,” Dostal said. “Nobody expected that the whole process would go ahead so fast and the area would change so much in just a few years.” He said the large animals are as key to preserving the ecosystem “as trees are for forests.” David Storch, an environment professor at Prague’s Charles University who was not involved in the project, agreed. He said the project is “absolutely unique” because it shows that nature can be preserved not only by protecting it from human activities but also by actively shaping it with big-hoofed animals.Wild horses are silhouetted against the sky at a wildlife sanctuary in Milovice, Czech Republic, July 28, 2020. Wild horses, bison and other big-hoofed animals once roamed freely in much of Europe.The selection of the animals was based on the experiences of conservationists in various countries. Domestic animals such as sheep were ruled out because they would feed on endangered plants as well. Mechanical cutting of the invasive plants was deemed too costly. While invasive grasses are a delicacy for wild horses, European bison and tauros prefer bushes, creating an ideal partnership. The invasive plants began to grow after Soviet troops, who stayed on after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of then-Czechoslovakia, finally withdrew from the base in 1991. Former military bases are considered places with great biodiversity, the conservationists said, because soldiers’ activities simulated the impacts of hoofed animals. The Czech project includes tauros that were transferred from the Netherlands, where a crossbreeding program aimed at coming close to the original species, the aurochs, started in 2008. That wild ancestor of today’s cattle became extinct in the 17th century. Wild horses were transported from Britain’s Exmoor National Park, while European bison came from several reserves in Poland. The project now has herds of 27 European bison, 25 tauros and some 70 wild horses. The animals move freely on the pastures on the former military base year-round. With water sources available, they are able to care for themselves, even in winter.  The landscape quickly saw signs of transformation. Flowers started to dot the area as early as the second year of the project as the large herbivores reduced the tall, dense invasive grasses. Today, the whole area changes colors over the course of the year, depending on what flowers are in bloom.  The most precious is the star gentian, also known as a cross gentian. The blue flower is now flourishing at Milovice more than anywhere else in the country. The former base also has become abundant in other animals and insects. The Adonis blue, a butterfly, has been spotted there for the first time since 1967.  “If we give nature a chance, if we give it time and space, it can take care of many things,” said Miloslav Jirku, a biologist with the Czech Academy of Sciences who has been involved in the project from the start. “At the very beginning, I thought that lots of species that used to be here in the 1990s would have to be returned artificially. Today, a number of them are already here without us doing anything about it,” he said. 
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China on Saturday sealed off another village in Inner Mongolia after a resident died from bubonic plague, the second lockdown in the region in two days.According to a statement issued by the Health Commission of Bayannaoer, a local patient suffering with the centuries-old disease died Friday of multiple organ failure. He was the second victim of the plague reported this month in the northern Chinese region.”The place of residence of the deceased is locked down, and a comprehensive epidemiological investigation is being carried out,” the announcement posted on the commission’s website said.The first lockdown was announced Thursday in an adjacent city when the health commission of Baotou announced a villager there had died of circulatory system failure.Map of China showing Inner Mongolia regionThe bubonic plague is a highly infectious and often fatal disease, “with a case-fatality ratio of 30% – 100% if left untreated,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).The authorities in both cities issued a third-level alert – the second lowest in a four-level system – effective immediately until the end of 2020, to prevent the spread of the disease.While the disease is spread mostly by rodents, authorities in both cities have warned that human-to-human transmission is possible. “Currently, there is a risk of human plague spreading in our city,” the statement reads.All close and secondary contacts of the patients have been quarantined, the two commissions said. They also urged people to reduce contact with wild animals and avoid hunting, skinning or eating animals that could cause infection.Cases are becoming increasingly rare in recent years in China. According to China’s National Health Commission, there were five cases in 2019, with one death. Worldwide, there are 1,000 to 2,000 cases each year that are reported to the WHO.
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Much of Canada’s remaining intact ice shelf has broken apart into hulking iceberg islands thanks to a hot summer and global warming, scientists said.Canada’s 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island had been the country’s last intact ice shelf until the end of July when ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service noticed that satellite photos showed that about 43% of it had broken off. She said it happened around July 30 or 31.Two giant icebergs formed along with lots of smaller ones, and they have already started drifting away, White said. The biggest is nearly the size of Manhattan — 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) and 7 miles long (11.5 kilometers). They are 230 to 260 feet (70 to 80 meters) thick.”This is a huge, huge block of ice,” White said. “If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there’s nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig.”The 72-square mile (187 square kilometer) undulating white ice shelf of ridges and troughs dotted with blue meltwater had been larger than the District of Columbia but now is down to 41 square miles (106 square kilometers).Temperatures from May to early August in the region have been 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1980 to 2010 average, University of Ottawa glaciology professor Luke Copland said. This is on top of an Arctic that already had been warming much faster than the rest of globe, with this region warming even faster.”Without a doubt, it’s climate change,” Copland said, noting the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below.”The Milne was very special,” he added. “It’s an amazingly pretty location.”Ice shelves are hundreds to thousands of years old, thicker than long-term sea ice, but not as big and old as glaciers, Copland said.Canada used to have a large continuous ice shelf across the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, but it has been breaking apart over the last decades because of man-made global warming, White said. By 2005 it was down to six remaining ice shelves but “the Milne was really the last complete ice shelf,” she said.”There aren’t very many ice shelves around the Arctic anymore,” Copland said. “It seems we’ve lost pretty much all of them from northern Greenland and the Russian Arctic. There may be a few in a few protected fjords.”
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Researchers have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals mated with at least four other contemporary species of ancient humans, or hominids, and the evidence lives on in the genes of modern men and women.A study published Thursday in the science journal PLOS Genetics shows how researchers from Cornell University analyzed the genomes, the complete genetic “map,” from Neanderthals, a prehistoric human ancestor called Denisovans, and modern humans.Analysis of the genomes revealed new evidence of gene flow between these species, bolstering earlier theories that the species intermated. The researchers found 3% of the Neanderthal genome came from interbreeding with other ancient humans that lived at the same time.The new study estimates this intermixing happened between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago — far earlier than previous estimates indicated.The researchers also found that 1% of the Denisovan genome contained genetic material that came from an “archaic human ancestor” that was neither human, nor Neanderthal, nor Denisovan. They suggested it came from Homo erectus, an early human ancestor believed to be the first to spread to what is now Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.Homo erectus looked much like we do today, but with elongated legs and shorter arms. They are believed to have outlived contemporary hominids, dying out as recently as 117,000 years ago.The new study suggests that 15% of the genetic pieces that came from Homo erectus have been passed on to humans today. They suggest it split off from the lineage that would become modern humans about 1 million years ago, which would fit the timeline for intermingling with its contemporary hominid species.The genome for Homo erectus has not been sequenced so it is difficult to precisely figure out how all the different human ancestors got together. But the researchers theorize that migration habits combined with the fact that all four species did overlap for several thousand years made it likely that they intermingled.
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The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has updated its prediction for this year’s North Atlantic hurricane season, saying it will be “extremely active,” possibly record breaking.NOAA and its National Climate Prediction Center gave their initial seasonal predictions in May. But in its August update, issued late Thursday, forecasters say the 2020 season has already broken records, with nine storms through the end of July, five of them hitting the U.S. mainland. Historically, NOAA says only two named storms form by early August.  In a teleconference with reporters, NOAA’s lead hurricane forecaster, Jerry Bell, said they now see 19 to 25 named storms during the season ending November 30.  Bell say seven to 11 of those are expected to become hurricanes and three to six could become major hurricanes.  Those numbers include the nine storms already recorded this season.Bell says oceanic and atmospheric conditions are now even more hospitable for hurricane formation and intensification than they saw in May, when they predicted 13 to 19 named storms. He said these conditions are predicted to continue for the next several months.  Bell does not believe 2020 will break the record for storms set in 2005, when there were 28 names storms as warmer oceans and other atmospheric conditions were more favorable.  But he believes 2020 will be one of the stronger seasons on record.   NOAA reminded people in hurricane-prone regions to keep the COVID-19 pandemic in mind when making hurricane preparations, particularly if they are required to evacuate their area.
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