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Enlarge / This butterfly is also referred to as the Cairns Birdwing. (credit: Jodi Jacobson)

Nearly 17 percent, or 22.5 million square kilometers, of the world’s land now falls within protected areas. Countries have established laws that safeguard these parcels of land—or in some cases, aquatic areas—to ensure that the natural ecosystems and their respective species and functions remain in good health. Creating protected areas has clearly helped some species, like the Asian elephant, survive.

But protected areas around the globe—at least as they stood in 2019—are failing to account for some of the world’s smallest, most vulnerable, and most fundamentally icky denizens: insects. New research sheds light on this issue, suggesting more than three-quarters of known insect species are not adequately protected by current dedicated conservation areas.

According to Shawan Chowdhury, a conservation biologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and one of the paper’s authors, there are also likely many more species of creepy crawlies we don’t know about and that are likely also being failed by existing protected areas.

Enlarge / An intensive care nurse cares for a patient suffering from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), who is being ventilated in the children's intensive care unit of the Olga Hospital of the Stuttgart Clinic in Germany. (credit: Getty | picture alliance)

With SARS-CoV-2 still circulating and seasonal viruses, including influenza and RSV, making up for lost time during the pandemic, the US is getting slammed by respiratory illnesses. And things could get worse as more holidays and associated gatherings approach, health officials warned Monday.

"This year's flu season is off to a rough start. Flu's here, it started early and with COVID and RSV also circulating, it's a perfect storm for a terrible holiday season," Sandra Fryhofer, chair of the American Medical Association and adjunct medicine professor at Emory University School of Medicine, said in a press briefing held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today. "Over the last few years, COVID-protective measures also prevented spread of flu and other respiratory infections, but we're really no longer in that bubble."

Cases of influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) are soaring throughout the country, with 47 states seeing "very high" or "high" activity levels, according to the latest CDC data. The agency estimates that there have been at least 8.7 million illnesses, 78,000 hospitalizations, and 4,500 deaths from flu.

Enlarge / "Being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us,” Joe and Anthony Russo said in a joint statement. (credit: Netflix/Wizards of the Coast)

Avengers: End Game might have stopped short of toppling Avatar as the highest-grossing film worldwide, but it has still raked in a staggering $2.71 billion globally. And now Deadline Hollywood reports that the next project for co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo will be an adaptation of the hugely popular and influential card game Magic: The Gathering into an animated series for Netflix.

Clearly, Netflix is looking to tap into that lucrative Russo brothers box office mojo, and who can blame them? The brothers have produced "four Marvel Studios hits in five years with $6.61 billion in global box office," per Deadline Hollywood. Octopie Network will be co-producing with Bardel Entertainment overseeing the animation.

“Our goal is to not only tell a compelling story leveraging Magic: The Gathering’s incredible body of work, but to also push the medium and perception of storytelling through animation,” Octopie CEO Isaac Krauss told the site. “This series will cross the genres of suspenseful thriller, horror, and drama with deeply developed characters the likes of which are not often seen in animation.”

(credit: Getty Images | eccolo74)

Two lobby groups representing small and medium-sized Internet service providers have taken the first step toward suing the Federal Communications Commission over a ruling designed to boost competition.

The groups are trying to overturn a condition imposed on Charter's purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. In exchange for approval to buy the cable companies, Charter agreed to compete against other ISPs by building new networks in cities and towns already served by high-speed Internet providers.

The American Cable Association (ACA), which represents smaller cable companies in mostly rural and suburban areas, and NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, which represents small telcos, each filed petitions to overturn the condition with the FCC last night. This is basically a formality to demonstrate to a court that the groups have exhausted all available options before suing. Assuming the FCC rejects the petitions, the groups will likely file a lawsuit.

We can't tell whether that recipient's face is one of joy because she received a package within an hour or sheer terror because she got it from a random dude who makes money via Amazon's new Flex delivery program. (credit: Amazon)

If you think there's not enough self-employed driving gigs in today's Uber-style economy, Amazon has some news for you. Starting Tuesday in the company's home base of Seattle, the online shopping giant will begin paying people "$18-25 per hour" to deliver Amazon Prime Now packages out of their own cars.

The program, dubbed "Amazon Flex," will eventually launch in a number of major markets, including New York, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Austin, Indianapolis, Portland, and Atlanta—in short, major Amazon Prime Now markets. Notably, no Californian cities are included in the list, though we can't be sure whether that's because of "sharing" economy pitfalls such as litigation filed by San Francisco Uber drivers about benefits they may be entitled to due to "employee" status.

According to the program's site, participating delivery men and women must own cars, have valid drivers' licenses, be over the age of 21, pass a background check, and own an Android smartphone.