Katrine DermodyJune 5, 2013 11:14

Return to sender: Small Spanish town Brunete hands dog poop back to owners

In a bid to stamp out its canine excrement problem, officials in the small Spanish town of Brunete have blurred the line between sass and innovation — and the results are hilarious.

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A more direct, but less hilarious way of encouraging pet owners to pick up after their pups. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Joe Raedle/AFP/Getty Images)

Officials in Brunete, a small town of roughly 10,100 inhabitants located on the outskirts of Madrid, have come up with a brilliant idea to address the issue of excessive dog poop that has come to speckle its otherwise picturesque Spanish streets.

Katrine DermodyMay 20, 2013 11:37

In Croatia, honeybees are trained to find landmines

Sugar-craving honeybees are all the buzz when it comes to the most innovative way to seek out unexploded land mines.

India: Leopards stalk Bollywood

Jason OverdorfMarch 20, 2013 06:01

MUMBAI — For residents of Aarey Milk Colony and other communities that border Sanjay Gandhi National Park, there is good reason to be afraid of the dark. Over the past decade, the leopards that stalk Bollywood have mauled or killed more than 100 people — even straying onto the studio lots of nearby Film City.

Katrine DermodyFebruary 6, 2013 10:29

Viral Video of the Day

The newest employee of Tama Zoo outside Tokyo donned a zebra costume during the drill as emergency workers set up a barricade.

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A zookeeper checks a zebra-dressed man after being 'tranquilized' during a drill to practice what to do in the event of an animal escape at the Tama zoo in western suburb of Tokyo on February 1, 2013. About 60 zookeepers participated in the annual drill. AFP PHOTO/TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA (TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images)

The Japanese are nothing if they're not prepared. Here, we see the newest employee of Tama Zoo outside Tokyo donning a zebra costume during an earthquake drill as emergency workers set up a barricade.

Zambia bans game hunting of lions and leopards as populations fall

Faine GreenwoodJanuary 11, 2013 09:27

The Zambian government has decided to ban the big-game hunting of lions and leopards within its borders, a considerable turn around for a country popular with trophy-seekers.

Forget cocaine: Rhino horn is the new drug of status

Erin Conway-SmithAugust 27, 2012 06:32

JOHANNESBURG — More expensive than cocaine, rhino horn has become the party drug of choice among Vietnam’s bright young things. This is the latest twist in South Africa’s devastating rhino poaching crisis, which began with a sudden boom in illegal killings of the endangered animal in 2008 and has worsened every year since.

Science teachers may be partially responsible for invasive species in US, Canada

Faine GreenwoodAugust 9, 2012 17:38

Science teachers may be guilty of more than just the occasional shockingly boring lecture: new research finds that instructors may be responsible for the introduction of a number of damaging invasive species in the U.S and Canada.

Dolphins can do nonlinear math, new sonar study suggests

Faine GreenwoodJuly 19, 2012 14:13

Math-challenged, beware: dolphins may be better at complex nonlinear mathematics than you are, reported Discovery News.

Seabird study finds Pacific plastic trash on the rise

Faine GreenwoodJuly 9, 2012 14:35

Scientists tested the stomach contents of beached northern fulmars (an abundant, gull-like seabird) in British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington State to come to their conclusions about world pollution levels. The study, conducted between 2009 and 2010 and published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, found that 92.5% of beached northern fulmars sampled had some amount of plastic in their digestive tracts. One bird had a whopping 454 pieces of plastic in its stomach.