Two recent amphibian-focused studies shed light on the ecological importance of red-backed salamanders, while confirming that proactive measures would prevent costly impacts from a wildlife disease spreading across Europe that has not yet reached North America.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/26/2024 - 12:12
08/26/2024 - 09:28
Search for more survivors of cave collapse that killed one called off as records show 23 not 25 people were on tour
After a 17-hour, 200-person rescue operation in which first responders used chainsaws and ice picks to cut through a collapsed ice cave to track down two missing tourists, police in Iceland have called off the search and said they now believe that no one had ever been missing.
Officials in Iceland said on Monday that after examining tour operator records, they had concluded that 23 people were on the tour, not 25 as had been previously reported.
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08/26/2024 - 09:00
Data shows people living alone were more likely to die in recent periods of unusually intense heat around the world
The dangers of extreme heat can be amplified by social isolation, experts have warned, with those living alone found to be most likely to suffer.
“Heatwaves are deadly,” Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University who studies climate disasters, once said. “Cold societies make them far more lethal.”
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08/26/2024 - 07:27
Donation from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment will be used across country’s more than 400 national park sites
The official non-profit organization of the US national park service is set to receive the largest grant in its history, a $100m gift the fundraising group described as transformative for the country’s national parks.
The National Park Foundation, which Congress created in the 1960s to support national parks, will receive the donation from the Indianapolis-based foundation Lilly Endowment Inc. The park foundation described the gift on Monday as the largest grant in history benefiting US national parks.
This article was amended on 26 August 2024. An earlier version referred to Yellowstone in Montana, but it is mostly in Wyoming.
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08/26/2024 - 07:00
Much of the land near the atomic bomb’s birthplace was converted to recreational areas, but toxic waste remains
Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed.
Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, said the plutonium levels in and around New Mexico’s Acid Canyon were among the highest he had ever seen in a publicly accessible area in the US during his decades-long career – comparable to what is found in Ukraine at the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
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08/26/2024 - 06:00
From the merveille du jour to the burnished brass, Britain’s 2,500 species of moths are all special in their own way
Tim Blackburn is professor of invasion biology at UCL and author of The Jewel Box: How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules
Let me start with a confession: I love moths. If your instant reaction to that statement is a shudder and expression of dislike (or worse), be assured that you’re not alone. It is the commonest response I get. But before you scroll on or turn the page, I hope you will give me a couple of minutes of your time to persuade you to change your mind. Moths are extremely important and beautiful creatures, and we should all love them.
Almost all of them, anyway. There’s a couple of tiny species that nibble holes in your jumpers and chew your carpets, and I’m not going to try to make you love those. Feel free to hate them with a vengeance, particularly as autumn draws in and you open your jumper drawer to find unwanted evidence of their labours. But Britain has about 2,500 other species of moths, and it would be unfair to let the clothes moths colour your perceptions of the other 99.9%. And the others really are special, in all sorts of ways.
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08/26/2024 - 01:39
Incident happened as tour group of 25 was visiting Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in south-east of country
At least one person has died and two others are missing after an ice cave partially collapsed as a group of tourists was visiting a glacier in southern Iceland.
In a statement posted on social media, local police said first responders received a call shortly before 3pm on Sunday. They said a group of about 25 foreign tourists from several nationalities were exploring ice caves at the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier when four people were hit by ice.
Two people were seriously injured, one dying from their injuries at the scene of the accident, another taken by helicopter to a hospital in the capital, reportedly in a stable condition.
A large number of rescuers worked throughout the afternoon and into the evening searching for the two missing people. The operation was paused after dark due to the dangerous conditions but was to resume in the morning, police said.
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08/26/2024 - 01:00
Major report released at 4pm on Friday with no media release or a press conference from Tanya Plibersek
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A leading conservation group has accused the government of trying to “bury bad news” about the health of the Great Barrier Reef by releasing a major five-yearly outlook report on Friday afternoon.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s 600-page report said the “window of opportunity to secure a positive future” for the reef was “closing rapidly” and the outlook for the ecosystem was “very poor”.
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08/25/2024 - 04:32
Dion George says avoiding extinction of African penguin is his objective, and settling case aimed at stopping fishing around major colonies will help
South Africa’s new environment minister has said he wants to stop African penguins from going extinct by taking measures including settling a case brought by two environmental charities to stop fishing around the birds’ major colonies.
BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCOB) said they want an extension of no-fishing zones around six beaches and islands where the penguins breed, after failing to reach an agreement with fishing industry groups demanded by the previous minister.
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08/24/2024 - 23:00
The International Whaling Commission has become a ‘zombie’ and should vote to disband itself, insists Peter Bridgewater
Peter Bridgewater has a clear message for the International Whaling Commission (IWC) that he once led. The organisation – which played a critical role in ending whale hunting in the 1980s – has become a zombie institution that should vote to disband itself at its meeting next month.
“The commission did great work, but that was last century,” Bridgewater told the Observer last week. “Today it has – like so many other international conventions or organisations – outlived its useful life and should be quietly disbanded.”
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