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In 2006, a white bear with brown splotches, believed to be a hybrid of a polar bear and a grizzly, was shot by Arctic hunters. Then in 2009, a possible hybrid of a right whale and a bowhead was photographed in the Bering Sea.

The increased hybridization of animals is a strong indication that our climate is changing.

As Arctic sea ice continues to melt at drastic rates, different species of seals, whales, and bears previously blocked by huge slabs of ice will begin mingling in the same regions and possibly mating.

Hybrid animals are generally infertile. But the trend is worrisome because it could drive certain species to extinction since those animals are no longer mating with their own kind.

A study published in the journal Nature in 2010 listed 34 species that are at risk of cross-breeding because of a warming climate.

We asked artist Nickolay Lamm to help us imagine what some of those hybrid animals would like if they came to life. 

Elin Pierce, a writer and editor with a Ph.D. in biology, helped to hypothesize what features the hybrid animals would have, based on dominant features of the original two species, and any descriptions or photos of those hybrids that already exist in the wild.

A beluga whale is on the left and narwhal is on the right.

This is a beluga-narwhal hybrid. In this artist’s interpretation, the hybrid has some narwhal coloring and the forehead has less of a bump. In the late 1980s, a whale skull thought to be that of a beluga-narwhal mix was found in west Greenland. Local hunters say they have also spotted the hybrid.

A polar bear is on the left and a grizzly bear is on the right.

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Britain is about to come to a monumental decision — it will decide tomorrow whether it will bomb ISIS (also known as Islamic State) in Syria.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing for politicians to debate and then vote over whether the UK should join the air strikes on Wednesday.

There will be no Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow in the House of Commons. This is because Cameron wanted to make sure there is time for a full day’s debate on the potential military action on Syria.

The debate is tipped to begin at 11.30 a.m. and continue until 10 p.m. tomorrow.

“We will take the action necessary to make sure we have, in many ways, the equivalent number of questions we would often have across a two-day debate in one day,” said Cameron in a speech outside Downing Street. “I want MPs to be able to have full consideration, to make speeches, to make points, to ask me questions, to examine the government’s case.”

He added that there was “growing” parliamentary support for bombing Syria and that it is “the right thing to do.”

Cameron’s push for a confirmed date and time for a vote could signal that it’s almost certain that air strikes in Syria are going to happen. This is because Cameron said he will only hold a vote but only if he has obvious and clear support from the House of Commons. He said that if the vote failed, it would give ISIS a propaganda victory.

According to the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, “informed guesses in Westminster suggest around 380 MPs might be ready to vote for action, with only around 260 or so opposing – a comfortable majority by any stretch.”

Meanwhile, the leader of the Labour party Jeremy Corbyn only just confirmed that he will give his party’s politicians a free vote over whether they are for or against the bombing. This is significant as usually a leader of a political party will whip round and try and get all MPs on the same page.

Prior to Cameron’s pledge to get a one day debate and vote underway as soon as possible, Corbyn criticised the Prime Minister for not holding a two day debate and that he should “stop the rush to war.”

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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese authorities are investigating nearly a dozen wooden boats carrying decomposing bodies found drifting off the northwestern coast over the past month.

Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they have found at least 11 shoddy boats carrying the bodies of unknown nationality since late October. They have also found fishing equipment and nets on board and signs written in Korean, suggesting they came from North Korea.

Officials say dozens of wrecked boats drift toward Japan’s northwestern coasts facing the Sea of Japan every year.

This year, officials have found 34 mystery boats so far, including the 11 found between late October and November. Last year, Japan found 65 of them, and 80 more in 2013, according to the Coast Guard.

Coast Guard spokesman Yoshiaki Hiroto said the boats are apparently from the Korean Peninsula, though he declined to identify the country. He said the number of drifting mystery boats tends to rise during the fall and winter season because of the wind from the northwest. Simple wooden boats like those are not used in Japan, he added.

On Nov. 20, officials found four bodies in two capsized boats off the coast of Ishikawa prefecture. Two days later, seven bodies were found inside another wooden boat off nearby Fukui prefecture.

Coast Guard said officials autopsied some of them but could not determine their nationality or cause of death.

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Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know in the world of advertising today.

1. These are the 10 candidates most likely to replace Marissa Mayer if she leaves Yahoo. Analysts at SunTrust have drawn up a shortlist that includes former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and CBS Interactive CEO Jim Lanzone.

2. Here’s what the logos for Amazon, Levi’s, HBO Go, and more would say if they were being honest. Graphic designer Clif Dickens re-imagines logos on his Honest Slogans blog.

3. People’s racist Facebook comments are ending up on billboards near their homes. A new campaign in Brazil called “Virtual racism, real consequences” is using the location tag from Facebook posts to find out where teh offenders live — although the posters blur out their names and photos.

4. The former CEO of Vodafone Europe told us why he’s joining the board of an ad blocker. He also told us he believes mobile carriers should only make ad blocking an opt-in service for customers.

5. Activists vandalized 600 billboards in Paris to criticize sponsors of the UN summit on climate change taking place there. The “Brandalism” campaign says it is behind the billboards, adding that the aim was to “highlight the links between advertising, consumerism, fossil fuel dependency, and climate change.” 

6. Snapchat is now enabling publishers to “deep link” their Discover content, Digiday reports. It means publishers can share links on other social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, which will link directly to their Snapchat content.

7. AOL president Bob Lord is leaving the company, The Wall Street Journal reports. Lord told the WSJ that he plans to run a public company or a company heading towards an IPO.

8. Target said its Cyber Monday web traffic was “twice as high” as its busiest day ever. Adweek reports that Target deliberately outed its website, placing visitors in a queue, to ensure its systems didn’t crash.

9. Amy Schumer posed naked for the new Pirelli calendar, which celebrates “distinguished women.” The tire company’s calendar usually features scantily-clad models, but this year it chose to honor women “of outstanding professional, social, cultural, sporting, and artistic accomplishment.”

10. The Daily Express owner Richard Desmond reveals he made an attempt to buy Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror. He told The Guardian that Trinity Mirror chief executive Simon Fox blocked the meeting.

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A former unit of Standard Bank, one of South Africa’s biggest lenders, has agreed to pay almost $33 million (£22 million) in fines and compensation for failing to prevent a bribery scandal in Tanzania.

The case is the first deferred prosecution agreement in the UK. It’s a procedure borrowed from the US that allows prosecutors to suspend a prosecution if the company pays a fine and helps the investigators pursue the individuals responsible. 

David Green, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: “This landmark DPA will serve as a template for future agreements. The judgment from Lord Justice Leveson provides very helpful guidance to those advising corporates. It also endorses the SFO’s contention that the DPA in this case was in the interests of justice and its terms fair, reasonable and proportionate. I applaud Standard Bank for their frankness with the SFO and their prompt and early engagement with us.”

The case involves the bank’s work in 2011 and 2012 on the Tanzanian government’s $600 million sovereign debt placing to fund investments in the country’s infrastructure.

The Standard Bank unit paid $6 million to a company run by Tanzania’s head of tax collection after it won a role to work on the debt placing, and was accused of failing to prevent bribery under the Bribery Act 2010.

Satindar Dogra, a dispute resolution partner at Linklaters said: “This case illustrates that for a company seeking a DPA the bar is likely to be set very high in terms of cooperation.”

“The judge was plainly impressed that the bank had filed its self-report to the authorities before its internal investigation had even started, and that the events in question might otherwise have remained unknown to the SFO,” Dogra said.

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan police official says that an explosion has struck a group of children who were playing on the outskirts of a provincial capital in the country’s north, killing three boys and wounding 12 children, four of them critically.

Provincial police spokesman Jawed Basharat says the explosion took place on Tuesday at the outskirts of Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province. He says the victims were all between 7 and 12 years old.

Basharat says it wasn’t immediately clear what the source of the explosion was and that it could have been a land mine or some other left-over ordnance from the wars.

Afghanistan still regularly sees explosions from left-over land mines and other unexploded ordnance that kill dozens of people despite decades of clean-up efforts across the country.

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London (AFP) – Chinese investors China Media Capital (CMC) and CITIC Capital have bought a 13 percent stake in the parent company of Manchester City Football Club for $400 million (377 million euros), the companies said.

“We and our consortium partner CITIC Capital also see this investment as a prime opportunity for furthering the contribution of China to the global football family,” CMC chairman Ruigang Li said.

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BERLIN (AP) — The German Cabinet has approved plans to commit up to 1,200 soldiers to support the international coalition fighting against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The mandate, which requires parliamentary approval, was endorsed by ministers Tuesday, news agency dpa reported. It isn’t yet clear when lawmakers will consider it, but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition has a large majority and approval looks assured.

Following the Paris attacks, Merkel agreed to honor a request from France to provide support for its operations against IS in Syria. Germany plans to send reconnaissance aircraft, tanker planes and a warship to the region in support roles, but won’t actively engage in combat.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the daily Bild that he doesn’t expect Germany to have 1,200 soldiers participating at any one time.

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — President Petro Poroshenko has pardoned a Russian citizen arrested in eastern Ukraine and exchanged him for a Ukrainian serviceman held by Russian-backed separatists.

Poroshenko announced the exchange on his official website, which showed a photograph of him meeting early Tuesday with the freed Ukrainian, Andrei Grechanov.

The president said he pardoned Vladimir Starkov, a Russian who was arrested in July while driving a truck loaded with ammunition in eastern Ukraine and later sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ukrainian security services released a video in which Starkov acknowledged being a Russian military officer.

Russia has denied sending troops and weapons to eastern Ukraine, where separatists have been fighting government troops since April 2014 in a conflict that has killed more than 8,000 people.

A cease-fire has largely held since September.

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Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has delivered another blistering attack on the music industry and the “laughable amounts” services like YouTube pay to artists.

By: Michael Rundle,

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