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Herdsmen with their cows wait for buyers at Kara Cattle Market in Lagos, Nigeria. Veterinary services are in short supply across the country. Photo by Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images

Nigeria needs more veterinary doctors but getting them is a big challenge

Nigeria needs more veterinary doctors to improve agricultural production, disease prevention, wildlife conservation and the health of animals in the security sector
The world’s smallest frog can fit on a dime. E.N. Rittmeyer et al. (2012)

What is the smallest animal ever?

Scientists have identified the world’s smallest animal – for now. It could be possible smaller creatures exist that have not yet been discovered.
Free-range egg producers trade heavily on their implied ethical and nutritional value. But what are you really getting? REUTERS/Jason Lee

How to know what you’re getting when you buy free-range eggs

After Snowdale Holdings was penalised A$1 million for lying about their eggs being free-range, here are some tips on getting what you pay for in the supermarket.
Interspecies relationships can help traumatised animals form healthy attachments. Sugarshine animal sactuary

Hugs, drugs and choices: helping traumatised animals

Animals have complex experiences of trauma. Treating them is very similar to dealing with humans, requiring compassion, calm and common sense.
Nearly one-third of tropical animal species face extinction if humans do not curb our growing appetites for beef, pork and other land-intensive meats. The Panamanian golden frog bred by the Vancouver Aquarium in this 2014 file photo may be extinct in its natural habitat. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)

How changing your diet could save animals from extinction

As much as one-third of animal species in the tropics could be eradicated if their habitats continue to be converted for monoculture farming. We can all do something to make a difference.
Can a machine really think, be in awe and wonder? Shutterstock/Photobymhu

What does it mean to think and could a machine ever do it?

As machines get ever more complex as we strive to make them complete more complex tasks, it’s time to ask again: will they ever be able to think? But what is thinking anyway?

Gifts key to spider courtship

Male nursery web spiders who give gifts to females are more likely to successfully mate than males who don’t, according to…
Crows remember faces they associate with stressful situations for up to five years. And they tell their friends. Flickr/monkeyc.net

Never cross a crow - it will remember your face

Crows can remember human faces associated with stressful situations for up to five years and they’ll also warn their friends, a study has found. Crows are known for their extraordinary smarts and have…
Netherlands has moved to ban ritual slaughter without stunning but is killing an animal for food ever ethical? Flickr/Nick Saltmarsh

Explainer: the ethics of ritual slaughter

Ritual slaughter is an important part of Islamic and Jewish belief systems but, as recent TV footage showing cattle being butchered in Indonesian abattoirs demonstrated, there is great variation across…

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