The government has suggested the material, which it describes as low risk, could also be used in roads and infrastructure in other parts of Japan.
Slightly radioactive soil from near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will be transported to Tokyo and used in flower beds in the prime minister’s garden, in an attempt to prove to a skeptical public that the material is safe.
The decision comes 14 years after the plant suffered a triple meltdown in the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/28/2025 - 00:01
05/28/2025 - 00:00
Glyphosate, a pesticide linked to cancer, found at very high levels in menstrual products in the UK, according to report
Toxic pesticide levels have been found in tampons at levels 40 times higher than the legal limit for drinking water.
Traces of glyphosate, a pesticide linked to cancer, has been found at very high levels in menstrual products, according to a report by the Pesticide Action Network UK (Pan UK), the Women’s Environmental Network and the Pesticide Collaboration.
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05/27/2025 - 23:00
Data also shows small but ‘shocking’ likelihood of year 2C hotter than preindustrial era before 2030
There is an 80% chance that global temperatures will break at least one annual heat record in the next five years, raising the risk of extreme droughts, floods and forest fires, a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown.
For the first time, the data also indicated a small likelihood that before 2030, the world could experience a year that is 2C hotter than the preindustrial era, a possibility scientists described as “shocking”.
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05/27/2025 - 21:47
Unless something extraordinary happens, Labor's new environment minister, Murray Watt, looks set to extend the life of a huge Woodside gas plant in Western Australia. The decision hinges on the impact of the plant's continued operation on Murujuga rock art. A summary of an 800-page rock art monitoring report, released by the WA government, suggested concerns were overblown. However Adam Morton, Guardian Australia's climate and environment editor, says a deeper reading of the report is ringing alarm bells for some rock art experts
‘The spin has been wrong’: rock art expert raises concerns over critical report ahead of Woodside decision
Woodside boss says young people ‘ideological’ on fossil fuels while ‘happily ordering from Temu’
Will Labor take its chance to act on climate? – Full Story podcast
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05/27/2025 - 18:18
Reservoir lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in 20 years, study finds, vanishing ‘twice as fast as surface water’
The Colorado River basin has lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in the past 20 years, an amount of water nearly equivalent to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, a new study has found.
The research findings, based on Nasa satellite imagery from across the south-west, highlight the scale of the ongoing water crisis in the region, as both groundwater and surface water are being severely depleted.
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05/27/2025 - 18:01
The insects had been in decline until people started cramming together in the first large settlements
They survived the catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs, but bedbugs were in decline until the invention of the city, which sent their numbers soaring, researchers say.
Genetic analysis of a group of bedbugs showed their history was entwined with the human story, with the blood-sucking parasites spreading and thriving as humans crammed together in large settlements.
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05/21/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 22 May 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00124-7
The Ocean is central to our lives, providing vital ecosystem goods and services. It generates 50% of the Earth’s oxygen; absorbs around 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions; regulates the Earth’s climate; and provides food, income, and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. However, the Ocean is under serious multiple threats from overexploitation, climate change, and pollution. Here, I state my dream 2050 scenario for the Ocean and describe how trade, in the midst of broader ocean governance efforts, can contribute to realizing this dream.
05/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 May 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00129-2
The opportunity for climate action through climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning
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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