West Coast fisher denied endangered species protections and other top stories.

• West Coast fisher denied endangered species protections

  

  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped its consideration to give the West Coast fisher - a small, weasel-like mammal predator whose population has nearly disappeared across the West Coast for decades - federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.The federal agency had been considering listing the species as endangered since October 2014 due to concerns over logging practices and illegal pesticide use by marijuana growers, but since determined those threats were..

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• Is Hawking's Interstellar 'Starshot' Possible?

  

  When viewed on a cosmic scale, humanity lives on a tiny grain of sand floating in an unimaginably-deep ocean. Huge expanses of space separate even the closest stars, ensuring that, should any sufficiently intelligent life form want to spread across the galaxy, it would take a momentous effort to launch across the interstellar seas. As we look toward the stars, hoping that we may visit them some day, many would argue that interstellar travel is impossible. After all, the nearest-known star syste..

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• How Kepler's team recovered the exoplanet-hunting spacecraft

  

  The team behind NASA's exoplanet-finding spacecraft could sigh with relief Friday night after they were able to start communicating with the Kepler spacecraft in crisis more than 75 million miles from Earth.What started as a scheduled contact last Thursday led the team to find the spacecraft in Emergency Mode.  "We expected it would be pointed at the science attitude," said Kepler mission manager Charlie Sobeck from NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "Instead we found it in Emergency Mo..

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• Inky the octopus's great escape isn't all that surprising

  

  A well-loved octopus named Inky escaped recently from the National Aquarium in New Zealand.Aquarium manager Rob Yarrall says the lid to the octopus’ tank was left slightly ajar after maintenance one night. “He found this rather tempting, climbed out,” Yarrall says, “and he managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean, and off he went, and didn’t even leave us a message, just off and went!”The escape happened earlier this year, and hit the New Zealand national pr..

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• Florida mulls second hunt to deal with a bear of a problem

  

  Just months after Florida's controversial black bear hunt in October, the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission ruled yesterday that bear populations were already large enough to potentially justify another bear hunt this year.The Commission will meet in June to discuss options."The rule adopted last year technically established a standing season that is in place unless changed by the Commission," Tammy Sapp, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission communications manag..

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• Paris climate deal on target, two years ahead of schedule

  

  The global deal reached at the Paris climate conference of December 2015 could come into force two years ahead of schedule, according to comments Monday by Christiana Figueres, the United Nations' climate chief.The agreement was originally intended to swing into action in 2020, but this requires only that it be signed and ratified by 55 countries representing 55 percent of the world's total emissions. That target appears likely to be reached well in advance of the original deadline.A huge step ..

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• Greenland ice sheet's sudden meltdown catches scientists by surprise

  

  Monday saw the Greenland ice sheet covered in a record-breaking level of melt water for this time of year, according to scientists who monitor it.Researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute found that a whopping 12% of the ice sheet was covered in a layer of melt water that was at least 1 millimeter thick. Such double-digit figures typically don’t emerge until May – and the day before had seen levels of only 4%. The numbers had some researchers feeling “incredulous,” according to an upda..

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