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GoGreenNation news

Earth Day 2024: Houston area offers variety of ways to celebrate the planet

News Feed
Thursday, April 18, 2024

Reliant EnergyEmployees from Reliant Energy plant flowering plants at the Houston Botanic Garden as part of an Earth Day event on Thursday, April 18, 2024.Earth Day is Monday, but Houston-area residents can celebrate the planet and advocate for protecting it throughout the upcoming weekend and beyond. Several family-friendly events, many of which are free, are being held around town leading up to the holiday, which started in 1970. There are Earth Day events at local parks, museums, artists studios and the Houston Botanic Garden, where a flower-planting event was held Thursday. The lineup includes an inaugural celebration organized by the Healthy Port Communities Commission, which is holding a free event at Hidalgo Park in Houston's Second Ward. The park is situated near the Houston Ship Channel, a heavily polluted industrial area that was deemed as a "sacrifice zone" by Amnesty International. Erandi Trevino, the Houston organizer for the Austin-based nonprofit Public Citizen, which is part of the coalition, said she put together the event as a way to give back to an impacted community while calling attention to the importance of protecting the environment. "The reality for a lot of people is living right across the street from a chemical plant or a refinery or the Houston Ship Channel," Trevino said. "Hidalgo Park does embody that." The following is a rundown of 12 Earth Day events happening around the Houston area: SATURDAY Earth Day Community Clean-Up Challenge | 9 a.m. at 6345 Windswept Ln. The Houston Millennials organization is holding a trash-collecting competition to help clean up the southwest part of town while calling attention to the need for a cleaner environment. Participants can volunteer individually or as part of small teams, and prizes will be awarded to the winning teams after the 11:30 a.m. weigh-in. Light bites and beverages will be provided to volunteers, along with clean-up equipment such as gloves and trash bags. Visit the event webpage for more information. Sugar Land Earth Day Festival | 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at Houston Museum of Natural Science-Sugar Land, 13016 University Blvd. in Sugar Land Visitors to the pollinator garden at the Sugar Land museum can discover creatures and their habitats, learn about biodiversity in the ecosystem and participate in hands-on activities related to Earth Day. Tickets start at $5 for museum members and $15 for non-members and can be purchased online. Artful Earth: A Spring Celebration | 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring St. Head to Sawyer Yards for a free, art-centric Earth Day event that will include light bites and beverages, open artist studios, three exhibitions and guided meditation and sound bowls. Representatives from the Houston Botanic Garden, The Ranch Houston and Cornelius Nursery will be on hand, and original, Earth Day-themed art pieces in a variety of mediums will be available for $150 apiece, with proceeds benefitting the botanic garden and the Spring Street Studios building fund. Visit the event website for more information. Picnic in the Park | noon-4 p.m. at Evelyn's Park, 4400 Bellaire Blvd. The Evelyn's Park Conservancy is celebrating Earth Day and the Bellaire park's seventh anniversary with this free, family-friendly event, where 5,000 seedlings from a variety of tree species will be among the many giveaways. There also will be computer recycling a "Crush the Can" event and a community rock-painting project, along with vendors, a cake-cutting and entertainment for children and adults. Visit the event website for more information. Green Mountain Energy Earth Day at Discovery Green | noon-5 p.m. at Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney St. All are welcome at this free downtown event put on by the Discovery Green Conservancy and the Citizens' Environmental Coalition. It will feature the Houston Public Works Water Works Festival along with an afternoon of art, dancing, music and Earth Day-themed short films. Visit the event website for more information. SUNDAY Healthy Port Communities Inaugural Earth Day Celebration | 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Hidalgo Park, 7000 Avenue Q Houston's Second Ward will serve as the site for a new Earth Day event being organized by the Healthy Port Communities Coalition, which includes nonprofits such as Air Alliance Houston and Public Citizen. The free, family-friendly celebration is being held near the Houston Ship Channel, a heavily polluted industrial area that has been deemed as a "sacrifice zone" by Amnesty International. Sunday's event will include presentations about the dangers of plastics to people and the planet, and attendees also can enjoy live music, door prizes, food trucks and vendors. Those who plan to go are encouraged to walk, bike or use public transportation. Earth Day Bash | 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at Children's Museum Houston, 1500 Binz St. A variety of Earth Day-related activities are planned at the children's museum, including a water filtration demonstration, physics experiments from Rice University representatives, talks about ants and birds and a tree sapling giveaway. Tickets cost $17 and can be reserved online. Akaal Pachamama Earth Day at Old Town Harrisburg | noon-7 p.m. at 6632 Harrisburg Blvd. Attendees are asked to wear green and white to this free Earth Day celebration in the Second Ward, where there will be a pop-up market featuring a variety of local vendors. There also will be entertainment from 3-7 p.m. The Energy Corridor District's Earth Day Celebration | 1-4 p.m. at Terry Hershey Park, 15200 Memorial Dr. Admission is free to this family-friendly event in West Houston, where attendees can enjoy local food trucks, DJ music, a fashion show featuring clothing made with recycled materials, eco-friendly vendors and educational booths. They also can contribute to a communal art piece, and there will be tree seedling giveaways and children's activities such as games and face painting. More information can be found on the event webpage. MONDAY "Wild Texas" Mural Unveiling | 10-11 a.m. at Houston Botanic Garden, 1 Botanic Ln. The Houston Botanic Garden, Houston Parks Board and Gulfgate Redevelopment Authority will celebrate Earth Day by unveiling a 300-foot mural located along the Sims Bayou Greenway. "Wild Texas," by artist David Cobb, was more than six months in the making and "celebrates the diverse landscape of Texas in a stunning display of color and community spirit," according to event organizers. Earth Day HTX | 3:30 p.m. at Watonga Park, 4100 Watonga Blvd. The City of Houston and Apache Corporation are teaming up to plant 2,500 trees at Watonga Park in the northwest part of town, utilizing both volunteers from the community as well as employees from the Houston-based energy company. The event is part of a broader reforestation initiative by the Houston Parks and Recreation Department. APRIL 27 Earth Day Celebration | 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, 4501 Woodway Dr. This free, post-Earth Day event will feature a scavenger hunt, interactive activities and crafts and the chance to see and learn about a variety of plants and animals. More information is available at the event website.

Several family-friendly events, many of which are free, are being held around the Houston region before, on and after Earth Day, which is Monday.

Houston Botanic Garden Reliant Flower Planting

Reliant Energy

Employees from Reliant Energy plant flowering plants at the Houston Botanic Garden as part of an Earth Day event on Thursday, April 18, 2024.

Earth Day is Monday, but Houston-area residents can celebrate the planet and advocate for protecting it throughout the upcoming weekend and beyond.

Several family-friendly events, many of which are free, are being held around town leading up to the holiday, which started in 1970. There are Earth Day events at local parks, museums, artists studios and the Houston Botanic Garden, where a flower-planting event was held Thursday.

The lineup includes an inaugural celebration organized by the Healthy Port Communities Commission, which is holding a free event at Hidalgo Park in Houston's Second Ward. The park is situated near the Houston Ship Channel, a heavily polluted industrial area that was deemed as a "sacrifice zone" by Amnesty International.

Erandi Trevino, the Houston organizer for the Austin-based nonprofit Public Citizen, which is part of the coalition, said she put together the event as a way to give back to an impacted community while calling attention to the importance of protecting the environment.

"The reality for a lot of people is living right across the street from a chemical plant or a refinery or the Houston Ship Channel," Trevino said. "Hidalgo Park does embody that."

The following is a rundown of 12 Earth Day events happening around the Houston area:

SATURDAY

Earth Day Community Clean-Up Challenge | 9 a.m. at 6345 Windswept Ln.

The Houston Millennials organization is holding a trash-collecting competition to help clean up the southwest part of town while calling attention to the need for a cleaner environment. Participants can volunteer individually or as part of small teams, and prizes will be awarded to the winning teams after the 11:30 a.m. weigh-in. Light bites and beverages will be provided to volunteers, along with clean-up equipment such as gloves and trash bags.

Visit the event webpage for more information.

Sugar Land Earth Day Festival | 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at Houston Museum of Natural Science-Sugar Land, 13016 University Blvd. in Sugar Land

Visitors to the pollinator garden at the Sugar Land museum can discover creatures and their habitats, learn about biodiversity in the ecosystem and participate in hands-on activities related to Earth Day.

Tickets start at $5 for museum members and $15 for non-members and can be purchased online.

Artful Earth: A Spring Celebration | 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring St.

Head to Sawyer Yards for a free, art-centric Earth Day event that will include light bites and beverages, open artist studios, three exhibitions and guided meditation and sound bowls. Representatives from the Houston Botanic Garden, The Ranch Houston and Cornelius Nursery will be on hand, and original, Earth Day-themed art pieces in a variety of mediums will be available for $150 apiece, with proceeds benefitting the botanic garden and the Spring Street Studios building fund.

Visit the event website for more information.

Picnic in the Park | noon-4 p.m. at Evelyn's Park, 4400 Bellaire Blvd.

The Evelyn's Park Conservancy is celebrating Earth Day and the Bellaire park's seventh anniversary with this free, family-friendly event, where 5,000 seedlings from a variety of tree species will be among the many giveaways. There also will be computer recycling a "Crush the Can" event and a community rock-painting project, along with vendors, a cake-cutting and entertainment for children and adults.

Visit the event website for more information.

Green Mountain Energy Earth Day at Discovery Green | noon-5 p.m. at Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney St.

All are welcome at this free downtown event put on by the Discovery Green Conservancy and the Citizens' Environmental Coalition. It will feature the Houston Public Works Water Works Festival along with an afternoon of art, dancing, music and Earth Day-themed short films.

Visit the event website for more information.

SUNDAY

Healthy Port Communities Inaugural Earth Day Celebration | 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Hidalgo Park, 7000 Avenue Q

Houston's Second Ward will serve as the site for a new Earth Day event being organized by the Healthy Port Communities Coalition, which includes nonprofits such as Air Alliance Houston and Public Citizen. The free, family-friendly celebration is being held near the Houston Ship Channel, a heavily polluted industrial area that has been deemed as a "sacrifice zone" by Amnesty International. Sunday's event will include presentations about the dangers of plastics to people and the planet, and attendees also can enjoy live music, door prizes, food trucks and vendors. Those who plan to go are encouraged to walk, bike or use public transportation.

Earth Day Bash | 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at Children's Museum Houston, 1500 Binz St.

A variety of Earth Day-related activities are planned at the children's museum, including a water filtration demonstration, physics experiments from Rice University representatives, talks about ants and birds and a tree sapling giveaway.

Tickets cost $17 and can be reserved online.

Akaal Pachamama Earth Day at Old Town Harrisburg | noon-7 p.m. at 6632 Harrisburg Blvd.

Attendees are asked to wear green and white to this free Earth Day celebration in the Second Ward, where there will be a pop-up market featuring a variety of local vendors. There also will be entertainment from 3-7 p.m.

The Energy Corridor District's Earth Day Celebration | 1-4 p.m. at Terry Hershey Park, 15200 Memorial Dr.

Admission is free to this family-friendly event in West Houston, where attendees can enjoy local food trucks, DJ music, a fashion show featuring clothing made with recycled materials, eco-friendly vendors and educational booths. They also can contribute to a communal art piece, and there will be tree seedling giveaways and children's activities such as games and face painting.

More information can be found on the event webpage.

MONDAY

"Wild Texas" Mural Unveiling | 10-11 a.m. at Houston Botanic Garden, 1 Botanic Ln.

The Houston Botanic Garden, Houston Parks Board and Gulfgate Redevelopment Authority will celebrate Earth Day by unveiling a 300-foot mural located along the Sims Bayou Greenway. "Wild Texas," by artist David Cobb, was more than six months in the making and "celebrates the diverse landscape of Texas in a stunning display of color and community spirit," according to event organizers.

Earth Day HTX | 3:30 p.m. at Watonga Park, 4100 Watonga Blvd.

The City of Houston and Apache Corporation are teaming up to plant 2,500 trees at Watonga Park in the northwest part of town, utilizing both volunteers from the community as well as employees from the Houston-based energy company. The event is part of a broader reforestation initiative by the Houston Parks and Recreation Department.

APRIL 27

Earth Day Celebration | 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, 4501 Woodway Dr.

This free, post-Earth Day event will feature a scavenger hunt, interactive activities and crafts and the chance to see and learn about a variety of plants and animals.

More information is available at the event website.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Montana Judge Allows 2025-26 Wolf Hunting and Trapping Regulations to Stand While Lawsuit Proceeds

A Montana judge is allowing the wolf hunting and trapping regulations the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted earlier this year to stand, saying it's doubtful hunters and trappers will meet the record-high quota of 458 wolves this season

A Helena judge has allowed the wolf hunting and trapping regulations the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted earlier this year to stand, despite flagging “serious concerns” about the state’s ability to accurately estimate Montana’s wolf population.In a 43-page opinion, District Court Judge Christopher Abbott wrote that leaving the 2025-2026 hunting and trapping regulations in place while he considers an underlying lawsuit will not “push wolf populations to an unsustainable level.”In its lawsuit, first filed in 2022, WildEarth Guardians, Project Coyote, Footloose Montana and Gallatin Wildlife Association challenged four laws adopted by the 2021 Montana Legislature aimed at driving wolf numbers down. Earlier this year, the environmental groups added new claims to their lawsuit and asked the court to stop the 2025-2026 regulations from taking effect. The groups argued that a record-high wolf hunting and trapping quota of 458 wolves, paired with the potential for another 100 wolves to be killed for preying on livestock or otherwise getting into conflict with humans, would push the state’s wolf population “toward long-term decline and irreparable harm.” According to the state’s population estimates — figures that the environmental groups dispute — there are approximately 1,100 wolves across the state.In a Dec. 19 press release about the decision, Connie Poten with Footloose Montana described the ruling as a “severe setback,” but argued that the “resulting slaughter will only strengthen our ongoing case for the protection of this vital species.”“The fight for wolves is deep and broad, based in science, connection, humaneness and necessity. Wolves will not die in vain,” Poten said.Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks declined to comment on the order, citing the ongoing litigation. Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and the Outdoor Heritage Coalition, nonprofit groups that backed the state’s position in the litigation, could not be reached for comment on the order by publication time Monday afternoon.The order comes more than a month after a two-hour hearing on the request for an injunction, and about three weeks after the trapping season opened across the majority of the state. The trapping season is set to close no later than March 15, 2026.During the Nov. 14 hearing at the Lewis and Clark County courthouse, Alexander Scolavino argued on behalf of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission that hunters, trappers and wildlife managers won’t come close to killing 558 wolves this season. Scolavino added that the highest number shot or trapped in a single season was 350 wolves in 2020 — well shy of the 458-wolf quota the commission, the governor-appointed board that sets hunting seasons for game species and furbearers, adopted in August.Abbott agreed with Scolavino’s argument, writing in his order that it’s unlikely that hunters and trappers will “achieve anything near the quota established by the commission.” To reinforce his claim, he noted that hunters and trappers have not killed 334 wolves — the quota commissioners adopted for the 2024-2025 season — in any of the past five seasons. “In short, nothing suggests that the 2025/2026 season is likely to push wolf populations to an unsustainable level or cause them irreparable injury,” he concluded.Abbott seemed to suggest that livestock-oriented conflicts are waning and that it’s unlikely that the state will authorize the killing of 100 “conflict” wolves. He noted that livestock depredations dropped from “a high of 233 in 2009 to 100 per year or less today.” On other issues — namely the Constitutional environmental rights asserted by the plaintiffs and the reliability of the state’s wolf population-estimation model — Abbott appeared to side with the plaintiffs. Those issues remain unresolved in the ongoing litigation before the court.Abbott wrote that the plaintiffs “are likely to show that a sustainable wolf population in Montana forms part of the ‘environmental life support system’ of the state.” The environmental groups had argued in their filings that the existing wolf-management framework “will deplete and degrade Montana’s wolf population,” running afoul of the state’s duty to “preserve the right to a clean and healthful environment.”In his order, Abbott incorporated material from the plaintiffs’ filings regarding the economic and ecological benefits of wolves, including “the suppression of overabundant elk, deer and coyote populations,” “restoring vegetation that aids water quality, songbirds and insect pollinators,” and “generating income and jobs” by contributing to the wildlife-watching economy anchored by Yellowstone National Park.Abbott also expressed “serious concerns” about the way the state estimates wolf numbers — a model that relies, among other things, on wolf sightings reported by elk hunters — but ultimately concluded that the court is currently “unequipped” to referee “the palace intrigues of academia” in the wildlife population-modeling arena. In the press release about the decision, the environmental groups described these pieces of Abbott’s order as “serious and valid questions” that the court must still address.Another lawsuit relating to the 2025-2026 wolf regulations is ongoing. On Sept. 30, Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, and Sen. Shannon Maness, R-Dillon, joined an outfitter from Gallatin County and the Outdoor Heritage Coalition (which intervened in the environmental groups’ litigation) to push the state to loosen regulations by, for example, lengthening the trapping season and expanding the tools hunters or trappers can use to pursue and kill wolves. The plaintiffs in that lawsuit argue that liberalizing the hunting and trapping season would reaffirm the “opportunity to harvest wild fish and wild game animals enshrined in the Montana Constitution,” and bring the state into alignment with a 2021 law directing the commission to adopt regulations with an “intent to reduce the wolf population.”According to the state’s wolf management dashboard, 83 wolves have been shot or trapped as of Dec. 22. The department closed the two wolf management units closest to Yellowstone National Park to further hunting and trapping earlier this year after three wolves were killed in each of those units. This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

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Pink platypus spotted in Gippsland is cute – but don’t get too excited

Biologist says monotreme a Victorian fisher has nicknamed Pinky is ‘unusual but not exceptional’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCody Stylianou thought he saw a huge trout. But, skimming just below the surface, it was moving differently than a fish would.The creature surfaced and, amazed, the Victorian fisher reached for his phone. Swimming in front of him was a pink platypus. Continue reading...

Cody Stylianou thought he saw a huge trout. But, skimming just below the surface, it was moving differently than a fish would.The creature surfaced and, amazed, the Victorian fisher reached for his phone. Swimming in front of him was a pink platypus.Stylianou regularly fishes in the Gippsland spot, which he is keeping secret to protect the rare animal. He thinks it could be the same one he saw years ago, just older and bigger.“The bill and feet are super obviously pink,” he says. “When he did go a bit further into sunlit areas, he was easy to follow underwater, which is how I got so many videos of him surfacing.”Stylianou had been on his first trout fishing trip of the season in September when he saw the platypus, which he has nicknamed “Pinky”. He watched it feed at the top of the tannin-stained river for about 15 minutes.Sign up: AU Breaking News email“I’ve seen other platypus in the same river system, just regular coloured ones,” he says. “Probably about five to eight of them over the years, from memory. Normally, they just pop up at the top of the water and then disappear once they see me.”After Stylinaou shared footage of the monotreme, commenters online speculated that it could have been a rare albino platypus. But the biologist Jeff Williams says it is just lighter in colour than what most would expect.“Platypus do vary a lot in colour,” the director of the Australian Platypus Conservancy says. “And this one’s at the extreme end of the light ones. It’s not one that we consider should be added to the list of albino and leucistic ones.”Just as humans have different coloured hair or skin pigment, platypus also come in different variations, Williams says. He said the platypus captured on video was “unusual but not exceptional”.“What I’ve seen and what every other leading platypus person has looked at, it says, is that it’s well within the sort of variation in colour that one would expect,” he says.“Let’s put it this way, it’s cute, but it’s not a breakthrough … We think this is just one of the extreme ends. Every so often, you will get a genetic anomaly that just throws up things, just as it does with some humans, who have more freckles and so on.“It’s somewhat unusual, but it’s nothing to get particularly excited about, we’re afraid.”Sniffer dogs are being trained to track down threatened platypus populations – videoThe platypus is listed as near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There has also been a decline in Victorian populations, making them more vulnerable, Williams says.“Platypus were in significant decline up until about the 1990s when all the impact of European settlement on our waterways was becoming apparent,” he says.“We messed up pretty much the flow of every river we’ve got. We cleared native vegetation along most of our waterways, and, not surprisingly, that put a lot of pressure on the platypus population.”Replanting programs along the waterways, and consideration of environmental impacts near rivers, have started to help the population come back.“We’ve still got a way to go, and we can’t be complacent,” Williams says.“But the good news at the moment is most of the survey work that’s being done around the place is suggesting numbers that are coming back, certainly the number of sightings in some places where there was concern.”

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The AI-powered tool could inform the design of better sensors and cameras for robots or autonomous vehicles.

Why did humans evolve the eyes we have today?While scientists can’t go back in time to study the environmental pressures that shaped the evolution of the diverse vision systems that exist in nature, a new computational framework developed by MIT researchers allows them to explore this evolution in artificial intelligence agents.The framework they developed, in which embodied AI agents evolve eyes and learn to see over many generations, is like a “scientific sandbox” that allows researchers to recreate different evolutionary trees. The user does this by changing the structure of the world and the tasks AI agents complete, such as finding food or telling objects apart.This allows them to study why one animal may have evolved simple, light-sensitive patches as eyes, while another has complex, camera-type eyes.The researchers’ experiments with this framework showcase how tasks drove eye evolution in the agents. For instance, they found that navigation tasks often led to the evolution of compound eyes with many individual units, like the eyes of insects and crustaceans.On the other hand, if agents focused on object discrimination, they were more likely to evolve camera-type eyes with irises and retinas.This framework could enable scientists to probe “what-if” questions about vision systems that are difficult to study experimentally. It could also guide the design of novel sensors and cameras for robots, drones, and wearable devices that balance performance with real-world constraints like energy efficiency and manufacturability.“While we can never go back and figure out every detail of how evolution took place, in this work we’ve created an environment where we can, in a sense, recreate evolution and probe the environment in all these different ways. This method of doing science opens to the door to a lot of possibilities,” says Kushagra Tiwary, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab and co-lead author of a paper on this research.He is joined on the paper by co-lead author and fellow graduate student Aaron Young; graduate student Tzofi Klinghoffer; former postdoc Akshat Dave, who is now an assistant professor at Stony Brook University; Tomaso Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, an investigator in the McGovern Institute, and co-director of the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines; co-senior authors Brian Cheung, a postdoc in the  Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines and an incoming assistant professor at the University of California San Francisco; and Ramesh Raskar, associate professor of media arts and sciences and leader of the Camera Culture Group at MIT; as well as others at Rice University and Lund University. The research appears today in Science Advances.Building a scientific sandboxThe paper began as a conversation among the researchers about discovering new vision systems that could be useful in different fields, like robotics. To test their “what-if” questions, the researchers decided to use AI to explore the many evolutionary possibilities.“What-if questions inspired me when I was growing up to study science. With AI, we have a unique opportunity to create these embodied agents that allow us to ask the kinds of questions that would usually be impossible to answer,” Tiwary says.To build this evolutionary sandbox, the researchers took all the elements of a camera, like the sensors, lenses, apertures, and processors, and converted them into parameters that an embodied AI agent could learn.They used those building blocks as the starting point for an algorithmic learning mechanism an agent would use as it evolved eyes over time.“We couldn’t simulate the entire universe atom-by-atom. It was challenging to determine which ingredients we needed, which ingredients we didn’t need, and how to allocate resources over those different elements,” Cheung says.In their framework, this evolutionary algorithm can choose which elements to evolve based on the constraints of the environment and the task of the agent.Each environment has a single task, such as navigation, food identification, or prey tracking, designed to mimic real visual tasks animals must overcome to survive. The agents start with a single photoreceptor that looks out at the world and an associated neural network model that processes visual information.Then, over each agent’s lifetime, it is trained using reinforcement learning, a trial-and-error technique where the agent is rewarded for accomplishing the goal of its task. The environment also incorporates constraints, like a certain number of pixels for an agent’s visual sensors.“These constraints drive the design process, the same way we have physical constraints in our world, like the physics of light, that have driven the design of our own eyes,” Tiwary says.Over many generations, agents evolve different elements of vision systems that maximize rewards.Their framework uses a genetic encoding mechanism to computationally mimic evolution, where individual genes mutate to control an agent’s development.For instance, morphological genes capture how the agent views the environment and control eye placement; optical genes determine how the eye interacts with light and dictate the number of photoreceptors; and neural genes control the learning capacity of the agents.Testing hypothesesWhen the researchers set up experiments in this framework, they found that tasks had a major influence on the vision systems the agents evolved.For instance, agents that were focused on navigation tasks developed eyes designed to maximize spatial awareness through low-resolution sensing, while agents tasked with detecting objects developed eyes focused more on frontal acuity, rather than peripheral vision.Another experiment indicated that a bigger brain isn’t always better when it comes to processing visual information. Only so much visual information can go into the system at a time, based on physical constraints like the number of photoreceptors in the eyes.“At some point a bigger brain doesn’t help the agents at all, and in nature that would be a waste of resources,” Cheung says.In the future, the researchers want to use this simulator to explore the best vision systems for specific applications, which could help scientists develop task-specific sensors and cameras. They also want to integrate LLMs into their framework to make it easier for users to ask “what-if” questions and study additional possibilities.“There’s a real benefit that comes from asking questions in a more imaginative way. I hope this inspires others to create larger frameworks, where instead of focusing on narrow questions that cover a specific area, they are looking to answer questions with a much wider scope,” Cheung says.This work was supported, in part, by the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Mathematics for the Discovery of Algorithms and Architectures (DIAL) program.

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Common household rat poisons found to pose unacceptable risk to wildlife as animal advocates push for ban

Environmentalists say proposed temporary suspension of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides ‘doesn’t go far enough’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCommonly available rat poisons pose unacceptable risks to native wildlife, according to a government review that has stopped short of recommending a blanket ban on the products, to the consternation of animal advocates.The long-awaited review of first- and second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides – FGARs and SGARs – has recommended the cancellation of some products, but a large array of waxes, pellets and blocks could continue to be sold to consumers subject to stricter labelling and conditions of use. Continue reading...

Commonly available rat poisons pose unacceptable risks to native wildlife, according to a government review that has stopped short of recommending a blanket ban on the products, to the consternation of animal advocates.The long-awaited review of first- and second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides – FGARs and SGARs – has recommended the cancellation of some products, but a large array of waxes, pellets and blocks could continue to be sold to consumers subject to stricter labelling and conditions of use.Baits containing anticoagulant rodenticides are widely available in supermarkets and garden stores such as Bunnings, Coles and Woolworths.The baits have come under scrutiny because they have been found in dead native animals such as tawny frogmouths, powerful owls and quolls that had eaten poisoned rats and mice.The second-generation products are more toxic and are banned from public sale in the United States and parts of Canada and highly restricted in the European Union.Commercially available rat poisons have been found in dead native animals. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The GuardianConsumers can identify SGARs in Australia by checking whether they contain one of the following active ingredients: brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone, difenacoum and flocoumafen. There are three FGAR active ingredients registered for use in Australia: warfarin, coumatetralyl and diphacinone.The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), in response to the review which was published Tuesday, has proposed a temporary suspension of SGARs while public consultation about the recommendations is under way. If the suspension goes ahead the APVMA said the affected products could still be used, but only in accordance with the proposed stricter conditions.“If suspended, the importation or manufacture of SGARs would be illegal. They could only be sold if they meet the new strict conditions around pack size and use,” a spokesperson said.Holly Parsons, of BirdLife Australia, said the review “doesn’t go far enough and crucially, fails to address secondary poisoning that is killing owls and birds of prey” such as when, for example, a native bird ate a poisoned rat.“Despite overwhelming evidence provided in support of the complete removal of SGARs from public sale, we’re yet to see proposed restrictions that come close to achieving this,” Parsons said.She said consumers should be able to “walk into stores under the assumption that the products available to them aren’t going to inadvertently kill native animals” but the APVMA has put “the responsibility on to the consumer with an expectation that labels are fully read and followed – and we know that won’t be the case”.The review also recommended cancelling the registration of anticoagulant rodenticides baits that come in powder and liquid form or which do not contain dyes or bittering agents, finding they do not meet safety criteria.But it found other baits sold as waxes, pellets and blocks could continue to be sold to consumers with some changes to labelling and conditions of use.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe APVMA found that under “current instructions” it could not be satisfied that these types of products would not have unintended, harmful effects on non-target animals, including native wildlife, nor that they would not pose undue safety risks to people who handled them including vulnerable people such as children.But it found the conditions of product registration and other “relevant particulars” could be varied in such a way as to allow the authority “to be satisfied that products will meet the safety criteria”.Some of the proposed new instructions would include limiting mice baits to indoor use only when in tamper-resistant bait stations; placing outdoor rat baits in tamper-proof stations within two metres of outside a building; changes to pack sizes; and tighter directions for the clean-up and disposal of carcasses and uneaten baits.The recommendations are subject to three months of public consultation before the authority makes a final decision.John White is an associate professor of wildlife and conservation biology at Deakin University. In 2023 he worked with a team of researchers that studied rat poison in dead tawny frogmouths and owls, who found 95% of frogmouths had rodenticides in their livers and 68% of frogmouths tested had liver rodenticide levels consistent with causing death or significant toxicological impacts.He said the authority’s proposed changes failed to properly tackle the problem that SGARS, from an environmental perspective, were “just too toxic”.White said even if the authority tightened the conditions of use and labelling rules there was no guarantee that consumers would follow new instructions. “We should be completely banning these things, not tinkering at the edges,” he said.A spokesperson for Woolworths said the supermarket would await the APVMA’s final recommendations “to inform a responsible approach to these products, together with the suppliers of them”.They said the chain stocked “a small range of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides for customers who might have a problem with rats or mice in their home, workplace, and especially in rural areas where it’s important for customers to have access to these products” while also selling “a number of alternative options”.Bunnings and Coles declined to comment.

Animals
Government

Trail Cameras in Vermont Captured Something Strange: Moths Sipping a Moose's Tears

Tear-drinking, known as lachryphagy, has mostly been observed in the tropics, so scientists were somewhat surprised to find the unusual behavior so far north

Trail Cameras in Vermont Captured Something Strange: Moths Sipping a Moose’s Tears Tear-drinking, known as lachryphagy, has mostly been observed in the tropics, so scientists were somewhat surprised to find the unusual behavior so far north Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent December 16, 2025 8:49 a.m. A trail camera in Vermont captured 80 photos of moths fluttering around a moose's head, likely slurping up its tears. Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Laurence Clarfeld was sifting through images captured by a trail camera in Vermont when he came across a photo that stopped him in his tracks. Clarfeld, an environmental scientist at the University of Vermont, knew he was looking at a moose. But, beyond that, he was totally perplexed. “It almost looked like the moose had two [additional] eyes,” he tells Scientific American’s Gennaro Tomma. When he flipped through more photos in the sequence, Clarfeld finally understood what he was seeing: Moths were sipping tears straight from the ungulate’s eyes. Scientists have observed this unusual phenomenon, known as lachryphagy, among other types of animals. But, as far as anyone knows, the photos represent the first documented evidence of moths drinking moose tears. Clarfeld and his colleagues describe the encounter in a new paper published November 20 in the journal Ecosphere.  Moths seen drinking moose tears for first time ever The photos were captured in the early morning hours of June 19, 2024, in the Green Mountain National Forest, a large swath of protected woodlands in southern Vermont. Researchers had deployed them as part of an ongoing wildlife survey by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. In total, the camera captured 80 snapshots of the moths fluttering around a moose’s head. The photos don’t specifically show the moths’ proboscises, the long, slender, straw-like mouthparts they use to suck nectar from flowers. But lachryphagy is the “most plausible explanation,” the researchers write in the paper. Roughly a year later, a colleague captured video footage that appeared to show the same thing—moths hovering around a moose’s eyes, per Scientific American. Scientists have previously observed moths, bees and butterflies feeding on the tears of other animals. They’ve documented solitary bees drinking the tears of yellow-spotted river turtles in Ecuador, stingless bees harvesting human tears in Thailand, erebid moths feasting on the tears of ringed kingfishers in Colombia and erebid moths slurping up the tears of sleeping black-chinned antbirds in Brazil. But most of these instances have occurred in subtropical and tropical regions. Only one known case of lachryphagy has been documented outside the tropics, according to the researchers: a moth eating the tears of a horse in Arkansas. At first, researcher Laurence Clarfeld didn't know what he was seeing when he spotted moths hovering around a moose's eyes. Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department It may be that lachryphagy is simply more common in the tropics. But it’s also possible that “not a lot of scientists are looking in [other] places,” Akito Kawahara, an entomologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History who was not involved with the research, tells Scientific American. Why do moths and other insects feed on tears? It’s not entirely clear, but scientists suspect they may be seeking out certain essential nutrients, like sodium, during periods when those substances may be harder to find elsewhere. They may also be looking for protein boost. Insects typically get protein from plant nectar, but tears may be a handy backup. “Vertebrate fluids are the main alternative source for obtaining proteins,” Leandro Moraes, a biologist at the University of São Paulo who observed tear-feeding moths in Brazil, told National Geographic’s Sandrine Ceurstemont in 2018. Did you know? Resourceful insects Aside from tears, butterflies and moths have been known to take advantage of whatever resources are available, gathering up nutrient-rich liquids in and around soil, feces and carrion, including sweat and blood. Scientists call this feeding behavior “puddling.” Though lachryphagy appears to be relatively rare in nature, researchers still want to learn more about this unusual behavior. The tear drinker obviously benefits, but what about the tear supplier? For now, the relationship appears to be fairly one-sided—and might even be harmful to the host. In moose, for instance, eye-visiting moths could be transmitting pathogens that cause keratoconjunctivitis, which can lead to eye lesions and “significant health impacts,” the researchers write in the paper. For now, though, that’s just a hypothesis. Now that tear-drinking has been observed outside its typical range, the researchers are curious to know where else this behavior might be taking place, and among which other species. They’re encouraging wildlife scientists to keep an eye out because lachryphagy might ultimately be “more widespread than the lack of past records would suggest,” they write. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

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