Of course New York City needs the microbes in the soil and the roots from the trees and plants of the Catskill Mountains to clean up its drinking water.

Tiny pupfish have adapted their respiration to go without oxygen for long stretches.

And you thought you could hold your breath for a long time. Enter the desert pupfish, a tiny fish that has been playing evolutionary catch-up due to the extreme changes in its environment over the last 10,000 years.

The desert pupfish has evolved to go without oxygen for considerable periods of time to survive its harsh environment

Seeded with a $2.5 million grant from the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development and matching funds from UNLV, the institute will decode people’s genomes to predict individual susceptibility to disease, study treatment options and fine-tune drug dosages to minimize adverse effects, Executive Director Martin Schiller said.

It’s that stuffy, sneezy, can’t sleep, achy time of year again. A warm burst of springlike weather in January and February launched the pollen season in earnest.

The relict leopard frog’s journey into Southern Nevada’s landscape has seen its share of challenges.

A shrewlike creature in Madagascar that can hibernate for at least nine months of the year without waking may help reveal how mammals survived the cataclysm that ended the age of dinosaurs, researchers suggest.

This is the second time a new species is found in the mountains, which is unusual; unclear of how venomous creature is.

If the species does go extinct, it will join Florida’s Dusky seaside sparrow as an endangered species that has died out while under federal protection