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France 24 •

Researchers analyse DNA from dung to save Laos elephants

Once abundant in the forests of Laos, Asian elephants like her have been decimated by habitat destruction, gruelling labour in the logging industry, poaching and scarce breeding opportunities.But conservationists are hoping DNA analysis of elephants' dung will help them track both captive and wild tuskers, so they can secure a healthy genetic pool and craft an effective breeding plan to protect the species.Laos -- once proudly known as "Lane Xang" or "Land of a Million Elephants" -- has between...
The Japan Times •

As Myanmar conflict rages on, drug escape leads thousands to addiction

In a drug treatment center in a wooden stilt house deep in the Thai jungle, young refugees from Myanmar wait patiently for the prick of an acupuncture needle.They are among the thousands who have become addicted to methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs that have flooded camps housing those forced to flee their homes by Myanmar's civil war.Myanmar's military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government in a February 2021 coup, igniting a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced nearly 3 million...
Photo by Laura Meinhardt on Pexels
Barrons •

Boats Carry Terrified Children To Safety In Thai Floods

Rescuers in boats carried 60 schoolchildren to safety in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai on Thursday after they were stranded by what residents said was the worst flood in decades.The children, students at Samakkhi Witthayakhom School, spent a terrifying night trapped in a dormitory as the floodwaters, swollen by torrential rains from Typhoon Yagi, surged on Wednesday afternoon.Millions of people across Southeast Asia are grappling with floods and landslides after Yagi barrelled through the...
RFI •

Snakes on a plate: pythons touted as protein alternative

Uttaradit (Thailand) (AFP) – In a warehouse in the lush humid farmlands of central Thailand, thousands of pythons lie coiled in containers, rearing and striking at the glass as people pass by. They are being raised for their robust, diamond-patterned skins, which are sold to high-end European fashion houses for belts, bags and handbags, but some scientists and industry insiders believe the snakes' true value could lie in their meat.Demand for meat is growing globally, despite...
International Business Times •

Feeling Stressed? Cuddle A Cow, Says UK Dairy Farm

Morag, an imposing Highland cow with a caramel coat, ambles out of the main shed at Dumble Farm in northern England and stands ready to meet her guests.Visitors have travelled from far and wide to the farm near Beverley in east Yorkshire, not to buy milk, yoghurt or cheese, but to enjoy a cuddle with Morag and her companions.Fiona Wilson and her co-farmers at Dumble Farm started offering the cuddling sessions in February when it became obvious that economic difficulties of modern dairy farming h...
Times of Malta •

Art for bark’s sake: stray dogs take up painting for UK charity

In their studio in Bristol, western England, rescue dogs Rosie and Alba are hard at work on their canvases, redefining the essence of abstract art – one tail swish at a time. 
To the untrained eye, their work at Bristol Animal Rescue Centre (ARC) could be seen as boisterous, childish at times and even just plain old messy.
But the two canines have a far more important job than pleasing critics.
Inflation and high interest rates across the UK plus people abandoning pets they bought during the COV...
Photo by Валерия Дроздова on Pexels
Barrons •

Caves Offer Refuge For Armenian Border Villagers Living In Fear Of Azerbaijani Attack

Residents in the village of Khnatsakh, on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, live in fear of an invasion by Azerbaijani troops.

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Residents in the village of Khnatsakh, on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, live in fear of an invasion by Azerbaijani troops.

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Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels
Barrons •

From Trash To Tuned: Finding New Homes For Unloved Pianos

In a deserted former department store near the port of Leith in Edinburgh, Tim Vincent-Smith reaches inside a grand piano's open top, his fingertips lightly plucking at the taut strings.

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In a deserted former department store near the port of Leith in Edinburgh, Tim Vincent-Smith reaches inside a grand piano's open top, his fingertips lightly plucking at the taut strings.

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Trees that grow six times faster: Scottish indoor farm helps climate

Tree seedlings planted at an indoor vertical farm have grown six times faster than they would if they had been planted outside. These astonishing results follow a trial at a crop research center near the city of Dundee in Scotland and could be a great weapon in fighting climate change. Each tree species, which includes Scots pine, oak, alder, hazel and birch, was grown under its own "recipe" of temperature, light, soil and water. What is the European Political Community? The seedlings grown at t
Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels
AP NEWS •

South Africa: Miners with lung disease prepare lawsuit

WELKOM, South Africa (AP) — Thabang Moorosi, a former driller in South Africa’s gold mines, takes a minute to catch his breath after struggling onto a hospital bed for his monthly lung check.

The 60-year-old, a long-distance runner in his youth, was diagnosed in 2005 with a lung disease, silicosis, after years of inhaling silica dust at rock faces far below ground.

He is one of tens of thousands of miners preparing to sue some of South Africa’s largest gold mining companies, including Anglo Am
Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels

Ukrainian Hairdresser Makes Waves In Scotland After Fleeing War

A hairdresser who fled the war in Ukraine has been shortlisted for one of the United Kingdom's top hairdressing awards. Viktoriia Vradii, 37, arrived in Edinburgh in May after leaving behind her salon business in the Black Sea port of Odessa, which has been under attack from Russian forces since the beginning of the war. She was named as a finalist in the international stylist category of British Hairdressing Awards. Stylist Simon Hill, who gave her employment at his salon in the Edinburgh subur

Earning its stripes: tech bid to crack tiger trade

In a town in northeastern Scotland, Debbie Banks looks for clues to track down criminals as she clicks through a database of tiger skins.

There are thousands of photographs, including of rugs, carcasses and taxidermy specimens.

Banks, the crime campaign leader for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London-based charity, tries to identify individual big cats from their stripes.

Once a tiger is identified, an investigator can pinpoint where it comes from.

"A tiger's stripes are as
The Star •

Wind and water: undersea drone readies to aid offshore boom

EDINBURGH: In a wave tank at a robot laboratory in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, engineers observe in silence as an underwater drone rises stealthily to the surface.

The team, which led the development of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) at Heriot-Watt university, believe the submersible machine is a game-changer for offshore wind farms, obviating the need for divers.

ALSO READ: Tomorrow’s ‘Top Gun’ might have drone wingman, use AI

The engineers reckon it will soon be ready to perform in

Decline in North Sea puffins causes concern

The Isle of May, off Scotland's east coast, is home to one of the UK's biggest colonies of seabirds. Some 200,000 birds, from kittiwakes to guillemots can flock to the rocky outcrop at the height of the breeding season.

But conservationists are concerned about dwindling numbers of one of the island's most distinctive visitors—the Atlantic puffin.

"The population was really booming in the 80s and 90s and then suddenly, a crash," David Steel, a manager at the nature reserve, told AFP.

"We lost
RFI •

Game of stones: Scottish island sweeps up Olympic curling

Mauchline (United Kingdom) (AFP) – In a factory outside Ayr in southwest Scotland, James Wyllie carefully lifts and caresses a curling stone, as well-used drilling and polishing machines grind in the background.

The 40-pound (18 kilogram) stone is made from unique granite rock harvested on Ailsa Craig, about 16 kilometres (10 miles) over a wild stretch of sea to the west of the mainland.

Wyllie, 72, is the retired owner of Kays Curling, which has been making curling stones since 1851 and has t
Head Topics •

Barrel nose: Whisky-sniffing dog hunts bad casks | Malay Mail

EDINBURGH, May 31 — A one-year-old cocker spaniel named Rocco has been employed to sniff out imperfections in wooden whisky barrels at a Scottish distillery with an aptly named boss. Any problems he finds among the casks at Grant’s whisky distillery in Girvan, southwest Scotland , will be...

Monday, 31 May 2021 08:19 AM MYTRocco, a one-year-old cocker spaniel has been employed to sniff out imperfections in wooden whisky barrels at a Scottish distillery. — AFP picSubscribe to ourTelegramchannel
International Business Times •

Edinburgh University Appoints First Black Rector

It's been more than 16 years since Debora Kayembe fled her home in the Democratic Republic of Congo after learning that a gun-running militia group that she had helped to expose wanted to kill her.

Since then, Kayembe sought asylum in Britain, started a family and settled in Edinburgh, where she worked as a human rights lawyer and political activist.

Despite a life filled with hardship and achievement, she said nothing could have prepared her for the message she received on the afternoon of Fe

Catching the number 1: Aberdeen trials hydrogen buses

The Scottish city of Aberdeen enjoyed a boom after the discovery of oil in the North Sea in the 1960s, propelling it to a central role in the industry.

Now it's preparing to launch a fleet of the world's first hydrogen-powered double-decker buses, as it tries to reduce air pollution and transform itself into a green economy.

The 15 vehicles emit water vapour instead of carbon monoxide and are in the final stages of testing before being put into service on the city's most popular routes.

The b
International Business Times •

Glasgow Artist Launches Plastic Bag Museum

Katrina Cobain unwraps a parcel and removes its precious contents, slowly and delicately as if she were handling an ancient scroll of papyrus.

But the items she places on the table of a makeshift studio in an old tobacco pipe factory in the east end of Glasgow are rather more mundane -- plastic carrier bags.

Yet, to many, they are considered historical items, representing the consumer excesses of the 20th and 21st centuries.

For Cobain, 24, every plastic bag tells a story of the modern age an
International Business Times AU •

Safe Space: Helping Glasgow's Drug Users From A Van

In the shade of the buildings at the bottom end of a secluded street in central Glasgow, Peter Krykant gets out of his converted white minibus and glances up an adjacent alleyway.

Krykant, 43, knows these streets well. Before he gave up drugs 11 years ago, he was homeless and would inject cocaine and heroin in places just like these.

"We need to stop criminalising people," Krykant, who started using drugs when he was 17, told AFP.

'We need to stop criminalising people' says Krykant, a former
The Telegraph •

'My boy is gone. He is dead': Riots and fears of race war as South African farmers bailed over black teen's death

"They are throwing rocks at the house and are coming through the walls - please hurry," the panicked voice of a woman, speaking Afrikaans, shouts into a two way radio. Minutes later her home was in flames after being hit by petrol bombs. The attack on the Rietvlei maize farm, on the outskirts of the remote South African town of Coligny, came just half an hour after two white farmers were granted bail for the alleged murder of a 16-year-old black teenager. Pieter Doorewaard, 26 and Phillip Schutt
The Media Online •

Accelerating the ‘girl effect’ in Zambia

The hour-long bus ride into the Zambian capital Lusaka is one of bumps and endless stops to pick up and drop off passengers but for the young woman with the long braids who sits in the back seat staring out the window, it’s the perfect time to day dream.

Her name is Annetty Chama and a little more than four months ago she started her first job as a teller at the mobile cash transfer company, Zoona.

Chama, 19, says she uses her trip in the taxi to dream about being successful and running her ow
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