Scientists have discovered a new species of fish, the 'grumpy dwarfgoby'. Found among coral reefs in the Red Sea, it has large canines and a fierce expression, even though it is only 2 cm long. Its existence highlights the region's rich biodiversity, but also stresses the need for conservation efforts as climate change causes major disturbances to the reef's ecosystem.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/16/2024 - 10:53
Cities such as Zurich and Dublin found to have key services accessible within 15 minutes for more than 95% of residents
When Luke Harris takes his daughter to the doctor, he strolls down well-kept streets with “smooth sidewalks and curb cuts [ramps] for strollers at every intersection”. If the weather looks rough or he feels a little lazy, he hops on a tram for a couple of stops.
Harris’s trips to the paediatrician are pretty unremarkable for fellow residents of Zurich, Switzerland; most Europeans are used to being able to walk from one place to another in their cities. But it will probably sound like fantasy to those living in San Antonio, Texas. That’s because, according to new research, 99.2% of Zurich residents live within a 15-minute walk of essential services such as healthcare and education, while just 2.5% of San Antonio residents do.
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09/16/2024 - 10:00
Cultural protection order has been framed as a push to curry favour with inner-city seats, ignoring grassroots campaigns from Indigenous and non-Indigenous locals
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Among the concerns listed by the 2,000 farmers who converged on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra last week was the protection of prime agricultural land from renewable energy developments.
It has become a common refrain. The National party leader, David Littleproud, warned at the party’s annual federal council on Friday of the risk to prime agricultural land from energy transition projects. The mining magnate Gina Rinehart took to the stage at a business event last year to warn that one-third of Australia’s prime agricultural land could be “taken over” by renewable energy projects. In almost every campaign against a proposed development in the bush, the potential impact on prime agricultural land is raised as a key concern.
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09/16/2024 - 10:00
There have been moments of modest progress but the Albanese government has not lived up to its early rhetoric
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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Back in the heady new government days of July 2022, Tanya Plibersek told the National Press Club that change was coming for environmental protection in Australia after a decade of disaster and neglect.
Releasing the five-yearly state of the environment report, which the previous Coalition government had received months earlier but put in a drawer until it was turfed from office, the new environment minister said it told a “story of crisis and decline in Australia’s environment”.
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09/16/2024 - 10:00
Birds practising kleptoparasitism – harassing each other until they drop their saliva-covered food – seen as ‘plausible pathway’ for arrival of H5N1
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Scientists have identified a new way for an aggressive strain of bird flu to enter Australia, via the habit of some migratory birds of harassing other birds and stealing their food and potentially their viruses.
Australia is the only continent to have so far escaped a virulent H5N1 strain of avian flu – known as 2.3.4.4b and discovered in Europe in 2021– that has devastated bird populations in other parts of the world.
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09/16/2024 - 07:28
Czech Republic, Poland and Austria fear worst may yet be to come as thousands are evacuated to higher ground
The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in central and eastern Europe has risen to at least 16, with several more people missing, as authorities reported deaths in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria and warned the worst may be to come.
The number of victims in Poland rose to five after a surgeon returning from work drowned in the south-western town of Nysa, where the hospital was evacuated and patients rescued by raft. Four more people had died in the southern towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój, firefighters said.
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09/09/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 10 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00071-9
Integrating the multiple perspectives of people and nature in place-based 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 | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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