Peering through the darkness under the faint light of a peach-colored moon, wildlife biologist Jason Davis spots a telltale green flash in the bushes.Quick as a flash himself, Davis arcs a long-handled mesh net through the humid coastal air, ensnaring his tiny target.Ignoring the mosquitoes, Davis heads to the open bed of his pickup truck, opens up a notebook-size metal testing kit, and begins examining his find. Two minutes later, he makes his pronouncement.”That is what I am calling bethaniensis,” he declares.”Photuris bethaniensis,” aka the Bethany Beach Firefly, was first identified in the 1950s, and has been found only in a sliver of southern Delaware coastland. Now environmental groups are shining a beacon on the luminescent beetle, whose unique habitat is threatened by coastal development, sea level rise, invasive plants and insecticides.The Center for Biological Diversity and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, both based in Oregon, are pushing for …

As a new Ebola outbreak rages in Congo, two of the first Ebola virus patients to be successfully treated in the United States during the deadliest recorded outbreak five years ago are reuniting with their doctors.Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were among the four Americans who were treated and recovered at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital in 2014.They plan to join Emory medical staff for a media briefing on Friday, the fifth anniversary of Brantly’s arrival. He was the first to come to Emory after being infected while working in Liberia.A third former patient, Dr. Ian Crozier, had planned to join them but is back in Congo, helping to fight the current outbreak.The outbreak in Congo is the second deadliest recorded and has already killed more than 1,800 people, nearly a third of them children.The 2014-16 outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people. …

Astronomers have created the most precise map to date of the Milky Way by tracking thousands of big pulsating stars spread throughout the galaxy, demonstrating that its disk of myriad stars is not flat but dramatically warped and twisted in shape.The researchers on Thursday unveiled a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way — home to more than 100 billion stars including our sun — providing a comprehensive chart of its structure: a stellar disk comprised of four major spiral arms and a bar-shaped core region.”For the first time, our whole galaxy — from edge to edge of the disk — was mapped using real, precise distances,” said University of Warsaw astronomer Andrzej Udalski, co-author of the study published in the journal Science.Until now, the understanding of the galaxy’s shape had been based upon indirect measurements of celestial landmarks within the Milky Way and inferences from structures observed in other galaxies …

Thousands of Pacific walruses have come to shore off the northwest coast of Alaska in their earliest appearance since sea ice has substantially receded.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage received a report that several thousand walruses were gathered Tuesday on the barrier island off the coast of Point Lay, a Chukchi Sea village of 215 about 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, spokeswoman Andrea Medeiros said.”This is the earliest date that large numbers of walruses have been confirmed on shore at Point Lay,” she said in an email response to questions, and the first time a herd has been seen as early as July.Sea ice along northern Alaska disappeared far earlier than normal this spring as a result of exceptionally warm ocean temperatures.Since 1981, an area more than double the size of Texas — 610,000 square miles (1.58 million square kilometers) — has become unavailable to Arctic …

The heat wave that smashed high temperature records in five European countries a week ago is now over Greenland, accelerating the melting of the island’s ice sheet and causing massive ice loss in the Arctic.Greenland, the world’s largest island, is a semi-autonomous Danish territory between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans that has 82% of its surface covered in ice.The area of the Greenland ice sheet that is showing indications of melt has been growing daily, and hit a record 56.5% for this year on Wednesday, said Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute. She says that’s expected to expand and peak on Thursday before cooler temperatures slow the pace of the melt.More than 10 billion tons (11 billion U.S. tons) of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt on Wednesday alone, creating a net mass ice loss of some 197 billion tons (217 billion U.S. …

Leading U.N. agencies are urging governments to adopt family-friendly policies to encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies at home and at work. The World Health Organization and U.N. Children’s Fund say breastfed babies have the best chance of enjoying a healthy, productive life.Health experts agree both mothers and babies reap tremendous benefits from breastfeeding. They say nursing mothers run lower risks of getting ovarian cancer, breast cancer and Type 2 diabetes. For babies, there are both short-term and long-term benefits. They say mother’s milk supports healthy brain development in babies and boosts their immune systems so they can better fight off infections. A U.N. survey finds wealthier countries have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, with fewer than 25 percent of babies being exclusively breastfed. This compares with Rwanda where nearly 90 percent of babies are breastfed and other countries such as Burundi and Sri Lanka, which have high …

Rwanda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo as the country struggles to contain the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus, as a third case has been reported in the border city of Goma.Oliver Nduhungirehe, Rwanda’s state minister for foreign affairs, said Thursday the government has shut down the border at the northeastern town of Gisenyi, which it shares with Goma, home to more than a million people and where tens of thousands cross on foot daily.The decision by Kigali runs counter to a plea made by the World Health Organization for countries not to close their borders or impose restrictions on travels to the Congo.  Congolese health officials have confirmed that the young daughter of a man who died of the virus earlier this week is showing symptoms of the disease.  The man was diagnosed a few days after arriving in Goma from a northeastern rural …

Divers and environmentalists found an unpleasant surprise in Aegean waters near Greece and are working to fix it.  What looked like colorful coral turned out to be a plastic wasteland, just one of many challenges delicate marine ecosystems face. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi dives in for a look. …