ecology

The environmental organization WWF turns 50 in 2011. And to celebrate, the United Kingdom has launched a collection of ten postage stamps of the most endangered animal species, including the African elephant, the black rhinoceros and the polar bear.

A team of scientists has described two cladocerous crustaceans, which could be endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, and which were found in two lagoons, one in the lower Guadalquivir basin and the other in a pasture in Extremadura. Both could currently inhabit more regions of the Mediterranean area.

Researchers at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek (United States) have sequenced the genome of 'Aureococcus anophagefferens', a species of algae whose massive proliferation gives rise to harmful 'red tides' that alter the ecosystem. The work is published in the journal 'Proceduings of the National Academy of Sciences' (PNAS).

A space base with solar panels, hydroelectric powered toy cars, dollhouses with wind turbines and receivers to collect rainwater are some of the "green" toys that have become fashionable in Germany and the US.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has just created an electronic document format that cannot be printed, which seeks to reduce the global consumption of paper. The new format has been christened with the extension of .WWF.

The bigeye bat ('Myotis capaccinii'), which lives in the Mediterranean, has curious dietary habits: in addition to hunting insects, it frequently captures live fish, according to Spanish researchers. Capture success is greatest in calm waters.

The next time you walk through Manhattan or Broadway in New York, don't forget to look down. A team of scientists has shown that an important part of the wealth of this city is the diversity of ants that inhabit it.

On April 20, BP's oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then the oil slick has been expanding in the ocean. US scientists now present the first independent measurement of the volume of the spill in the journal Science.