By DAVID DANELSKI, The Press-Enterprise

Feeling a bit slow and depressed? It just might be the air.

Neuroscientists at Ohio State University have linked fine-particle air pollution to slow thinking, bad memory and depressive-like behaviors in mice. The exposed animals also were found to have abnormal brain cells, inhibiting the flow of electrical impulses that transmit information.

The recent sight of road graders clearing old-growth Mojave Desert shrubs for the nation's first large-scale solar energy project on public land pained Phil Smith.

"It hurts because it will never be the same again," said the Chemehuevi elder, who lives near Needles, a city in southeastern California.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Small, seed-eating kangaroo rats are safe on the endangered species list, living the good life here on a 41,000-acre reserve in Riverside County.

Outsiders might think these big-eyed, hopping rats are adorable, but they don't have them in the neighborhood.

Nearly 60 burros were discovered dead in and near a horizontal mine shaft in a remote Mojave Desert wilderness area late last week, federal officials said.

The animals probably were seeking water from a spring inside the tunnel that apparently had dried up. In all, 56 burros died, most likely of thirst, officials said.

Tension has existed for years between party animals and families with children at popular off-road southern California desert playgrounds.

Now, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has officially banned nudity in those desert recreations areas under its jurisdiction.

The dead bear in the back of biologist Kevin Brennan's pickup was a 300-pound, brown-and-red reminder of what happens when wild animals develop a taste for household garbage, dog food and other nutrition sources people unintentionally provide.

California and federal officials are scrambling to find new ways to compensate for wildlife habitat destruction amid a rush of wind and solar development on public land in the Southern California desert.

Much is at stake.

The vast Mojave Desert is being targeted by solar energy advocates, sparking an outcry from environmentalists worried about the untouched wildlife.

"No matter how we look at it, we need large-scale energy development," said Carl Zichella, a renewable energy leader for the Sierra Club.

Government scientists tracking 158 desert tortoises relocated nearly two years ago from the Army's Fort Irwin in California to make way for military maneuvers say that nearly half of the animals have died, mostly from coyote attacks.

The death rate, disclosed at a scientific symposium last weekend, raises concern about relocating tortoises, a species threatened with extinction.

Desert tortoise populations in the Mojave Desert continue to decline, despite years of study and protection since the reptile was designated a threatened species in 1990, experts say.

Researchers say observations support a gloomy view of the animals' status.