The stock market closed down today, after an impressive run by the bulls yesterday. The DOW closed down 50.71 points, but still above 10,000; NASDAQ closed down 12.85, and the S & P lost 6.85 points. All three major indexes were down just over a half percent.

According to Japanese news agency Kyodo, a black bear attacked and assaulted nine tourists in a bus terminal in Central Japan. It happened this afternoon according to Japanese Times.

Enormous cave bears, Ursus spelaeus, that once inhabited a large swathe of Europe, from Spain to the Urals, died out 27,800 years ago, around 13 millennia earlier than was previously believed, scientists have reported.

Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) found that the black bears that become habituated to human food and garbage may not be learning these behaviors exclusively from their mothers, as widely assumed. Bears that steal human food sources are just as likely to form these habits on their own or pick them up from unrelated, “bad influence” bears.

Hikers and campers venturing into bear country this spring may be safer armed with 8-ounce cans of bear pepper spray than with guns, according to a new study led by a Brigham Young University bear biologist.

Hikers and campers venturing into bear country this spring may be safer armed with 8-ounce cans of bear pepper spray than with guns, according to a new study led by a Brigham Young University bear biologist.

Brown bears from the Iberian Peninsula are not as genetically different from other brown bears in Europe as was previously thought. An international study being published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS, shows that, on the contrary, the Spanish bear was only recently isolated from other European strains.

The pending federal decision about whether to protect the polar bear as a threatened species is as much about climate science as it is about climate change.

Knut, Germany's famous polar bear, turned one at the Berlin Zoo yesterday. For the celebration he had a healthy cake with fruits and vegetables, fish and rice on lettuce topped with a candle-shaped rolling pin.

According to an assessment by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the largest international conservation network, six of the world's eight species of bear are threatened with extinction.

In many parts of Europe wild animals like bears and wolves are making a comeback, and in one country the bear population is flourishing.