Fossil-fuel burning at Ohio facility could burn longer, leaving Middletown residents to face environmental risks
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It was just a few months after moving from Louisville to Middletown, Ohio, four years ago that Vivian Adams’s six-year-old daughter’s asthma problem worsened.
“My daughter was born prematurely so she already had lung issues,” she says, “[but] it’s gotten worse. She stays sick and coughing and can’t breathe. She’s had to go on everyday medication for her asthma, plus she has a rescue inhaler.”
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/29/2026 - 08:00
03/29/2026 - 07:00
Peaches, strawberries and grapes were almost always found to be contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’ in the analysis
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A first-of-its-kind analysis has identified Pfas pesticide residues on 37% of conventional California produce, with peaches, strawberries and grapes almost always found to be contaminated with the toxic “forever chemicals”.
The analysis coincided with the introduction of California legislation that would by 2035 fully ban Pfas from being used as active ingredients in pesticides, and require warning labels and other restrictions in the meantime.
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03/29/2026 - 02:00
According to new research, distinguishing between the UK’s 2,500 species could halt cognitive decline – so my brain could not be happier, or healthier
Do you ever worry that your brain’s slowing down and your mind is … what’s the word … fogging? If you do, I have news. A recent study on birdwatching, with the appropriately named lead author Erik Wing, found that learning to become an expert birder causes changes to the brain that may help to protect against age-related cognitive decline. Compared with novice birders, when true bird nerds tease apart difficult species, they show more activity in brain regions linked to visual processing, attention and working memory. These same areas also appear more compact, and age-related changes in them are smaller.
The take-home message is that learning to tell a chiffchaff from a willow warbler could help us to stay mentally sharp as we age. But what about discerning a common quaker from a clouded drab? Or a brown-line bright-eye from a bright-line brown eye? These are the names, not of birds, but of moths. I’ve been hooked on moths ever since I was a kid.
Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of This Book May Cause Side Effects
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03/29/2026 - 02:00
Exclusive: critics warn Reform UK use of trade policy would increase food costs amid cost-of-living crisis
Nigel Farage’s farming adviser has called for a doubling of wheat prices by using trade policy, which critics have said would hike food costs during a cost-of-living crisis.
Arable farmer and campaigner Clive Bailye has been appointed as a farming and land use adviser for Reform UK. Bailye owns the website The Farming Forum, a social network for farmers, and helped organise the large-scale protests against the Labour government’s introduction of inheritance tax for farmed land.
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03/28/2026 - 14:00
When we strip off, it is all there on our bodies: scars mixed in with the ordinary wear and tear. It’s bolstering – this evidence of life lived
Most waterholes in the northern rivers of New South Wales are hidden from view. Creeks snake through private land, unseen from the road. To find the path to my waterhole, a visitor needs directions. The forest is thick and there is no line of sight.
When I was a teenager, many of my peers lived on bushland with waterways. I had a close-knit group of girlfriends and we’d have weekend sleepovers, moving between each other’s houses and creeks.
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03/28/2026 - 01:00
University’s botanic garden will use study materials created by John Stevens Henslow, the naturalist’s mentor, 200 years ago
Plant specimens and teaching materials that inspired Charles Darwin and qualified him to work as a naturalist on HMS Beagle have been unearthed from an archive in Cambridge and will be used for the first time to teach contemporary students about botany.
The fragile specimens, ink drawings and watercolour illustrations of plants belonged to Darwin’s teacher and mentor, Prof John Stevens Henslow, and have been stored in Cambridge University’s herbarium for nearly 200 years.
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03/27/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 28 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00189-y
Assessing the status and challenges of vulnerability to viability transitions: small-scale fisheries in the transboundary Sundarbans mangrove forest
03/26/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 27 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00193-2
Antarctic Sanctuary: fishing effort responses to an international MPA in the Southern Ocean
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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