Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Scientists also name an overlooked snowdrop growing in the UK and a fruit that tastes like banana and guava A zombie fungus that springs from a trapdoor and a flame-like shrub named after the fire demon in the Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle are among the species of plant and fungi named by scientists in 2025. A list of 10 “weird and wonderful” new species was compiled by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew and their international partners, who together named 125 new plants last year. The list also includes an orchid whose flowers look bloodstained and attract sexually aroused flies, and a beautiful snowdrop that had been hiding in plain sight in UK gardens. Continue reading...

Emma Reynolds is expected to say an application window for the Sustainable Farming Incentive will be opened to smaller and new farms first Smaller farms will be prioritised for nature funding, the environment secretary is to announce, in a shake-up of post-EU nature subsidies. Emma Reynolds is expected to tell the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday that in June an application window for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will be opened solely for smaller farms and new entrants to the scheme, with larger farms only allowed to apply from September. Continue reading...

Sarat Sampada founders Harjeet Singh and Jyoti Aswati say allegations are ‘baseless, biased and misleading’ Police have raided the home of one of India’s leading environmental activists over claims his campaigning for a treaty to cut the use of fossil fuels was undermining the national interest. Investigators from India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) claim Harjeet Singh and his wife, Jyoti Awasthi, co-founders of Satat Sampada (Nature Forever), were paid almost £500,000 to advocate for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (FFNPT). Continue reading...

How might we prevent sea-level rise? Satellite-based radar, solar-powered drones, robot submarines and lab-based ‘artificial glaciers’ could all play a role Sea levels are rising faster than at any point in human history, and for every foot that waters rise, 100 million people lose their homes. At current projections, that means about 300 million people will be forced to move in the decades to come, along with the social and political conflict as people migrate inland. Despite this looming crisis, the world still lacks specific, reliable forecasts for when and where the seas will rise – and we have invested almost nothing in understanding whether and how we can slow it down. Societies must continue to focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s increasingly clear that the world needs to do more: we need to predict the future of the world’s ice with precision, and to explore safe, science-backed methods to keep it from melting away. Continue reading...