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SPONSORED BY  | | | | July 23, 2024: Wild horses are coming back, a rare cactus is the first species in the U.S. to go extinct from sea-level rise, and France is setting up mass AI-driven surveillance. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A reintroduced Przewalski's horse takes its first steps onto Kazakhstan's "Golden Steppe." Miroslav Bobek | | | The last truly wild horses are making a comeback. In June, seven Przewalski's (pronounced pshuh-VAL-ski's) horses were returned to Kazakhstan's "Golden Steppe," where the species has been extinct for at least half a century. Thanks to captive breeding programs, there are about 2,500 Przewalski's horses alive today, descending from only about a dozen wild-caught individuals. Reintroduction efforts in China, Russia, and now Kazakhstan mean that about half of these live in the wild.
Why these horses are so cool: Przewalski's horses and domestic horses may look similar, but their species diverged hundreds of thousands of years ago and even have different numbers of chromosomes. Unlike feral horses like mustangs that roam the Great Plains in the U.S., this species has never been domesticated, as far as scientists currently know. They were extinct in the wild by the 1960s.
Why this matters: Grasslands can't survive without herbivores to graze them. By reintroducing these wild horses into the central Asian steppe, conservationists are hoping to infuse life back into these degraded ecosystems, which are critical carbon sinks. --Allison Parshall, Associate News Editor | | | The only stand of the rare Key Largo tree cactus, which can grow to more than 20 feet tall, is now extinct from sea level rise. It is the first recorded case of sea-level rise driving a species to extinction in the United States. The towering species of cactus grows white flowers whose nectar bats feed on, and produces reddish-purple fruits that birds and mammals eat. A lone stand of 150 plants was discovered in the Florida Keys in 1992. By 2021, just six ailing stems remained as the Atlantic Ocean crept closer and closer.
Why this matters: Some 233 federally-protected species in 23 coastal states are most at-risk from sea level rise, according to a list put out a decade ago by the Center for Biological Diversity. Some species included on the list: the Key deer, loggerhead sea turtle, Western snowy plover and Hawaiian monk seal. Conservation biologists have worked hard to keep these species alive, but the climate is warming more rapidly than predicted even a few years ago. If fossil fuel emissions continue at their current rate, some experts estimate that roughly 1 in 3 species of animals and plants on Earth may go extinct by 2070.
What the experts say: "This existential threat that everyone's aware of, seeing the actual evidence of it happening, giving an expectation of what we can expect moving forward, is important," says James Lange, a research botanist at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, who published the paper about the lost cactus. "There's no shortage of plants in the Keys that are threatened with this same fate." | | | The Key Largo tree cactus.Courtesy of Susan Kolterman | | | • Nutrition labels on food packaging are 30 years old. Here's how they have transformed food in the U.S. | 5 min read | | | • In advance of the Olympics, France has authorized the implementation of mass AI-powered surveillance. | 5 min read | | | • One of the world's most elusive creatures--the spade-toothed whale--washed up on a New Zealand beach. | 3 min read | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY CCHCS | Use your skills to make a positive difference in the lives of incarcerated persons. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) / California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) is seeking full-time compassionate, knowledgeable psychiatrists to join our multidisciplinary mental health teams. Learn more. | | | • Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for some 30 percent of climate warming since the industrial revolution. Emissions tracking satellites, like SpaceX's MethaneSat, and emissions regulations are not curbing methane emissions, and violations in the industry are rampant, write Justin Mikulka and Sharon Wilson, from Oilfield Witness, an organization that uses optical gas imaging technology to track emissions from oil and gas companies. "The only viable path to addressing methane emissions is strong and courageous intervention from government to rapidly build out clean energy resources while phasing out oil and gas production," they say. | 4 min read | | | Around the same time that the seven Przewalski's horses were being released in Kazakhstan, a rumor surfaced on social media that two Przewalski's horses had been rescued in Colorado and Utah. My colleague Allison Parshall spoke to Rytis Juras, an animal geneticist whose lab at Texas A&M tested the horses' DNA. "It was very unexpected," he says, but they DO appear to be purebred Przewalski's horses. Allison recorded a great podcast about what makes these horses so special (and the surprising find out West)--I recommend you give it a listen. | Thank you for being part of our circle of science-curious readers! Email me anytime: newsletters@sciam.com. I read all your notes and respond to many. See you tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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