Biology

Bulgarian customs officers have seized 10 African grey parrots which a Bulgarian citizen tried to bring into the country from Turkey without proper documents required under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Pets in crisis are being abandoned in the streets of Greece prompting calls for help from animal shelters. “There were always strays, but now those who are not great animal lovers find an excuse to set the dog on the street,” said Vana Theodoridou, the manager of KAZ, a shelter near Athens that sends rescued dogs to Canada.

The financial crisis is having a deadly impact on animals at Attica Zoological Park, Athens’ only zoo at Spata. Many of the zoo’s 1,200 animals require imported specialty foods but – as if the 23% VAT hike on animal feed were not enough – the government-imposed restrictions on cash are blocking the zoo’s ability to access foreign shipments.

A video of a young woman giving birth to a boy in a car while she was on the way to the hospital has gone viral on the Internet. The woman can be seen strapped in the passenger’s seat while the pains start to take over. She cannot stand the pangs so she unbuckles the seat belt and the next moment a baby is crying in her arms….

Many of the workers in the bright-pink fields in this southwest Turkish province have an unexpected connection with the flowers they are tending. They are Syrian refugees working as itinerant laborers during Turkey's harvest of its prized Damascus rose. 

"There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead," said Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich. "We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on."

A home-made bomb has exploded in the building of the State Agency on Selection and Reproduction of Stock Breeding, located on the Bistrishko Shousse 26 in Sofia. Information on the incident has been received shortly prior to midnight on Sunday.

There is no information on people injured. There are, however, some damages done to the office building.

Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals has ruled parental permission is not necessary for the vaccination of babies and children, following a case where the parents of a one-year-old baby refused compulsory vaccinations for their child. 

Three U.S. universities have issued a report warning that the Earth has entered a new period of extinction. The study by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley stated that vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normals and conclude that humans could be among the first casualties.

The eldest human in the world (with proof) Jeralean Talley passed away, in Michigan, 26 days after celebrating her 116th birthday, according to a family representative.

Talley was born on May 23, 1899 in Georgia and was the oldest person in the world with verified records, after Gertrude Weaver’s death in April.