--- title: Animals in the news: true stories, fakes and how to read them — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Animals in the news: true stories, fakes and how to read them», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Animal stories are some of the most shared news in the world: a baby panda, a shark in a flooded street, a c --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Animals in the news: true stories, fak… # Animals in the news: true stories, fakes and how to read them Lesson 296 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/0/) — Animal stories are some of the most shared news in the world: a baby panda, a shark in a flooded street, a clever crow, orcas pushing boats. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/1/) — Some are true, some are old stories told again, and some are simply fakes. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/2/) — A news story is like a friend at school saying «you'll never believe what I saw»: it might be true, but you ask where they saw it, when, and whether anyone else saw it too. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/3/) — Good questions for any animal story are: who first reported it, is there a photo from the real place and day, do scientists say the same, and do the numbers mean what the headline says? - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/4/) — Rare things make the news because they are rare. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/5/) — A shark bite is a headline, but the cows and dogs that hurt far more people each year almost never are. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/6/) — Zoos have escape plans, trained staff and alarms; most escapes are of small animals and end quickly, and people should stay away and let the keepers handle it. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/7/) — Scientists describe thousands of new species every year, mostly insects, plants and small sea animals, and each one needs a scientific name, a type specimen kept in a museum and a scientific paper. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/8/) — After almost every big flood a fake picture of a shark swimming in a street spreads online; it is usually the same old edited photo, and checking where it first appeared shows it is fake. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/9/) — New Caledonian crows bend wire into hooks and solve puzzles in several steps, and scientists film the tests so others can see it is real; crows can also recognise and remember people's faces. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/10/) — Since 2020 a small group of orcas near Spain and Portugal has been reported pushing and biting the rudders of sailing boats; scientists are not sure if it is play, a fashion in the group or something else, and no person has been hurt by them. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/11/) — Whales strand on beaches for many reasons, such as sickness, loud noise, confusing coastlines or a group following its leader; rescuers keep them wet and cool and try to float them back out to sea, and people should call experts rather than push a whale alone. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/12/) — Bird flu spreads among wild birds and has killed many seabirds and even sea lions; people should never touch dead or sick birds and should tell an adult, who can report them. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/13/) — A newborn giant panda is tiny, pink and blind and weighs about 100 grams, while its mother is about 900 times heavier, far more than for most mammals, whose babies (like a human baby or a puppy) are much bigger compared with their mothers; China lends pandas to zoos abroad as a sign of friendship. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/14/) — After people left the area around Chornobyl in 1986, wolves, elk, bison, lynx and wild horses moved in; radiation is still there, and scientists study how the animals live with it. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/15/) — The Asian giant hornet, called the murder hornet in headlines, attacks honeybee hives and can kill a whole hive; it reached North America in 2019; scientists tied tiny trackers to hornets, found and destroyed the nests, and the United States declared it wiped out there in 2024. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/296-animals-in-the-news-true-stories-fakes-and-how-to-read-them/16/) — Animal attacks on people are rare, and they make big news because they are rare; headlines can make a rare danger feel common. - ← previous: [Animal myths put right: elephants and mice, lemmings, ostriches and goldfish](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/295-animal-myths-put-right-elephants-and-mice-lemmings-ostriches-and-goldfish/) - next →: [The future of life: de-extinction, climate, coral and frozen zoos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/297-the-future-of-life-de-extinction-climate-coral-and-frozen-zoos/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)