This week’s furore is microplastics researchers’ ozone moment. If they fail, the powerful plastics lobby will step into the breach
Debora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity
Are we being injured and killed by ubiquitous, teeny-tiny shards of toxic plastic? Or aren’t we? For many months, the Guardian has reported a series of worrying scientific results that our bodies are full of jagged microplastic particles that could be giving us everything from heart attacks to reproductive problems.
But on Tuesday, the Guardian revealed that a significant number of scientists think many of these studies showed no such thing. Or maybe they did. The methods are new and riddled with problems, so we can’t always reliably tell.
Debora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/16/2026 - 06:00
01/16/2026 - 05:16
Flood warning raised to highest level with roads washed away and rain forcing evacuation of Kruger national park
Large areas of north-eastern South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique have been inundated for several days with exceptionally heavy rainfall. Some locations in South Africa recorded hundreds of millimetres of rain over the weekend, such as Graskop in Mpumalanga, where 113mm fell in 24 hours, and Phalaborwa, which recorded about 85mm of rainfall. Rain has continued to fall across the region since the weekend.
The deluge has been driven by a slow-moving cut-off low pressure system that has remained anchored over the region, repeatedly drawing in moisture and triggering intense downpours. Further heavy rainfall is expected on Friday and over the weekend. Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, could expect daily rainfall totals to exceed 200mm by the end of Friday, while western parts of South Africa and north-western Eswatini may record more than 100mm.
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01/16/2026 - 05:10
Up to 30,000 customers of South East Water had no supply or low pressure at height of incident
Water has been restored to most homes across Kent and Sussex after almost a week of disruption.
South East Water (SEW) said the outage, which began on Saturday, was the result of Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.
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01/16/2026 - 03:50
Floods predicted for NSW south coast after severe storms dumped 180mm in six hours on Victoria’s Lorne and Wye River, washing cars into the sea on the Great Ocean Road
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Authorities have defended the timing of warnings for holidaymakers along Victoria’s surf coast who were hit by an “unprecedented” downpour on Thursday, as Sydney awaited its “soggiest weekend of summer” to date.
Weatherzone forecasters predicted 20mm of rainfall was possible in Sydney on both Saturday and Sunday, which would be a record for the time of year.
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01/16/2026 - 03:00
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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01/16/2026 - 01:00
Campaigners claim firm has bought sway over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths
Campaigners have accused BP of having an insidious influence over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in the UK through its relationship with the Science Museum.
Documents obtained under freedom of information legislation show how the company funded a research project that led to the creation of the Science Museum Group academy – its teacher and educator training programme – which BP sponsors and which has run more than 500 courses, for more than 5,000 teachers.
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01/15/2026 - 22:31
New research shows tropical forests can recover twice as fast after deforestation when their soils contain enough nitrogen. Scientists followed forest regrowth across Central America for decades and found that nitrogen plays a decisive role in how quickly trees return. Faster regrowth also means more carbon captured from the atmosphere. The study points to smarter reforestation strategies that work with nature rather than relying on fertilizers.
01/15/2026 - 14:00
Even low levels of widely used agricultural chemicals were linked to accelerated ageing, research suggests
The lifespan of fish appears to be drastically reduced by pesticides, a study has found.
Even low levels of common agricultural pesticides can stunt the long-term lifespan of fish, according to research led by Jason Rohr, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
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01/15/2026 - 08:01
Environment minister says attacks on social media affect perceptions of meteorology and denigrate researchers’ work
Spain’s environment minister has written to prosecutors to warn of “an alarming increase” in hate speech and social media attacks directed against climate science communicators, meteorologists and researchers.
In a letter sent to hate crimes prosecutors on Wednesday, Sara Aagesen said a number of recent reports examined by the ministry had detected a “significant increase” in the hostile language that climate experts are subjected to on digital platforms.
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01/15/2026 - 07:11
Exclusive: David Hinton, who faces calls to resign, will receive payout regardless of performance if he stays until July 2030
• South East Water could lose operating licence after outages• Business live – latest updates
The boss of the company that has left thousands of households in south-east England without water for days is in line for a £400,000 long-term bonus regardless of his performance, if he resists calls for him to resign over the outages.
David Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water, is to receive the payout if he stays on until July 2030.
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