Hot time in the city: Urban lizards evolve heat tolerance

Faced with a gritty landscape of metal fences, concrete walls and asphalt pavement, city lizards in Puerto Rico rapidly and repeatedly evolved better tolerance for heat than their forest counterparts, according to new research ...

Clamorous city blackbirds

(Phys.org)—Animals have developed a variety of strategies for dealing with increasing noise pollution in their habitats. It is known, for example, that many urban birds sing at a high pitch to differentiate their song from ...

Urban sparrows find new use for cigarette butts

Cigarette butts are widely reviled as an urban nuisance but birds in Mexico City see them as a boon, apparently using them to deter parasites from their nests, scientists say.

Auckland wastewater pipe dig reveals 'fossil treasure trove'

A new New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics paper out today describes the 266 fossil species as one of the richest and most diverse groups of three-million-year-old fauna ever found in New Zealand. At least ten previously ...

Throwing shade: Model maps NYC street trees' cooling benefits

Cornell researchers' "leaf-level" visualization of every tree in New York City—and how much shade each provides—could inform new strategies for mitigating extreme heat there, and in other cities coping with record-breaking ...

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