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01 / 05
A Simple Fix to an Illinois Building That Was a Bird Killer

New York Times | Treatment of Animals

A Simple Fix to an Illinois Building That Was a Bird Killer

“At the building that has long been the city’s most notorious bird killer, a sprawling lakefront conference venue that claimed almost a thousand birds on a single day in October 2023, new protections were in place.

The vast glass windows and doors of the building, called Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, are overlaid with a pattern of close, opaque dots. Applied last summer to help birds perceive the glass, the treatment’s early results are nothing short of remarkable. During fall migration, deaths were down by about 95 percent when compared with the two previous autumns.

Now monitoring is underway during the first spring migration since the dots.”

From New York Times.

BBC | Treatment of Animals

We Can Now Track Animal Panic from Space. Here’s Why It Matters

“Throughout June, Okambara is a bone-dry expanse of thorny trees and shrubs. Although the Sun is shining, cool winds keep the park’s animals vigilant, as the wildebeest, zebras and giraffes sniff out scents on the breeze, which could alert them to danger now moving through the bush. Yet the skilled intruders remain hidden downwind.

As the hunters close in on the game, the rifle lefts out a boom. Fear jolts through each species: springbok bounce, skittish zebra break into gallop, and the wildebeest turn and race, some not stopping for hundreds of metres, as they barrel away from danger into Okambara’s wide-open salt plains.

Scientists are now able to study these signals written in animal panic thanks to a new satellite system, named Icarus, which is tracking animal movement and behaviour on an unprecedented scale from space. By monitoring how animals react to the presence of human intruders, conservationists hope to pinpoint and crack down on poachers.”

From BBC.

The Scientist | Vaccination

AI Helps Design Personalized Vaccine for Dog with Cancer

“Losing a beloved pet is difficult for anyone to accept, but an Australian tech entrepreneur refused to give up when his five-year-old rescue pup Rosie was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Turning to ChatGPT and AlphaFold, Paul Conyngham worked with scientists to create a personalized mRNA vaccine. ‘We took her tumor, we sequenced the DNA, we converted it from tissue to data, and then we used that to search for the problem in her DNA, and then developed a cure based on that,’ Rosie’s owner Paul Conyngham said in an interview with the Today Show Australia. ‘ChatGPT assisted throughout the entire process.'”

From The Scientist.

Hindustan Times | Conservation & Biodiversity

Not a Single Rhino in Assam Poached in 2025, Says Himanta Biswa Sarma

“Assam did not record a single incident of rhino poaching in 2025 due to the state’s excellent conservation efforts, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday…

In 2022, the state was, for the first time since 1977, able to ensure that poachers did not kill a single rhino. But one rhino death was reported in 2023 while two were killed in 2024, which led the authorities to launch Operation Falcon, a multi-agency crackdown that have foiled nine poaching attempts.

A senior Assam police officer said 42 poachers were arrested in the state in 2024 and 2025, who were linked to six poaching gangs.”

From Hindustan Times.