Siraya, an Indigenous language declared extinct in the 19th century, is now being taught in 26 schools in Taiwan. Siraya activist Uma Talavan and her husband Edgar Macapili spent over 20 years reconstructing the language from a Dutch missionary’s 17th-century translation of the Gospel of Matthew […]

Panama tightens the net around its shark and ray trade (thank you, we’ll be here all night). Since January 2026, Panama has banned exports of any CITES-listed shark or ray species, while a bill currently before the legislature would extend that to a nationwide ban on targeted shark and ray […]

New Zealand makes cervical cancer screenings free for all women aged 25 to 69. Until now, 55% of eligible women paid NZ$35 to over NZ$100 a visit, a cost that hit younger women hardest. The free screenings start March 2027; the move backs New Zealand’s goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040 […]

Thailand eliminates rubella as a public health problem. The milestone, verified by the WHO, is the result of a vaccination programme that began in schools in 1986 and expanded to all one-year-olds in 1993. Thailand is the seventh country in the region to achieve elimination […]

Judges have ordered wildlife officials to reconsider habitat protection for one of North America’s rarest mammals. Judge Dale Drozd ruled on 16 September that the Fish and Wildlife Service broke the Endangered Species Act by inventing its own legal test to refuse critical habitat for the […]

The world’s smallest CT scanner now fits in one hand. China’s Institute of High Energy Physics built the 6 kilogram Xtomo-Cube, more than three times lighter than the previous record holder, running on battery power and skipping the heavy radiation shielding regular scanners need. Its scanning […]

Vancouver Island’s marmots have clawed back from 22 animals in 2003 to 427 today, the highest count on record. The Marmot Recovery Foundation released 41 captive-bred marmots this year, with 40 more due in 2026, while an estimated 120 pups were born in the wild in 2024 alone. Cougars, helped by […]

In DRC, the government has adopted its first-ever National Forest Policy. It requires free, prior and informed consent from communities before forest is allocated, and eases the path to Local Community Forest Concessions. Reminder, the DRC had the world’s third largest area of tropical forest […]

China’s clean-air campaign has cut Beijing’s smog by 70% in a decade, and cut heavily polluted days from 58 a year to just one. The effort has prevented an estimated 680,000 premature deaths since 2020 and generated $715 billion in cumulative health benefits. The UN Environment Programme calls […]

China’s clean-air campaign has cut Beijing’s smog by 70% in a decade, and cut heavily polluted days from 58 a year to just one. The effort has prevented an estimated 680,000 premature deaths since 2020 and generated $715 billion in cumulative health benefits. The UN Environment Programme calls […]

The global population of greater one-horned rhinos has hit a record 4,075. Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, shelters more than 2,600 of them. Poaching, once the species’ biggest threat, has fallen 86% since 2016; India, Nepal and Indonesia all recorded zero rhino killings in 2025. That’s […]

Your brain isn’t one organ, it’s two, stitched together in the womb. Stanford researchers found that the forebrain and midbrain (which handle language and reasoning) and the hindbrain (which runs breathing and heartbeat) grow from two entirely different progenitor cells. The same split shows up […]

A new wild cat species has been identified for the first time in over a century. In 2017, Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a Bolivian biologist, got a call about a weird cat that a local man had taken home. The man had raised it as a pet for a year before realising this was no house cat. Nine years, one […]

Global meningitis is in retreat. Meningitis is one of the top ten infectious killers worldwide, causing an estimated 259,000 deaths in 2023. That’s down by a quarter compared to 2015 and by almost half since 2000, with the sharpest reductions coming in deaths among young children. The biggest […]

New Mexico shuts the door on new uranium mines. Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard signed an executive order on 6 September 2026, banning new uranium mining across 52,609 km² of state trust land, although two leases running into the 2030s will be allowed to keep operating. New Mexico has […]

Wolves and wild horses have returned to Portugal’s Côa Valley. Rewilding Portugal has been working across the 3,180 km² Greater Côa Valley, releasing Sorraia horses and Tauros cattle since 2021 to restore natural grazing. Iberian wolves have now returned to the area on their own. The project has […]

California is weaning itself off fossil gas, fast. Gas-fired electricity generation in California fell by 26% in the first half of 2026, as utility-scale solar, batteries and the new SunZia wind project feed power in via a dedicated transmission line. On its hottest day this year, 26 August 2026 […]

New Zealand makes cervical cancer screenings free for all women aged 25 to 69. Until now, 55% of eligible women paid NZ$35 to over NZ$100 a visit, a cost that hit younger women hardest. The free screenings start March 2027; the move backs New Zealand’s goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040 […]

Bison have returned to Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert. 44 bison were released at Coahuila’s El Santuario reserve late last year, followed by 29 more into Sonora’s Cuenca Los Ojos region in February 2026, where the herd produced 10 calves within months. The bison population across Janos Biosphere […]

New Zealand’s first jointly run marine reserves have opened under combined Indigenous and government control. Five no-take reserves covering 308 km² took effect on 1 July 2026, giving the Kāi Tahu hapū Kāti Huirapa shared decision-making and a joint ranger team with the Department of […]