Without the strongest conservation efforts, it can’t be long before the Maugean skate – and other marine living fossils in Australia – are wiped out
Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this election
Australia is justly famous as a place where ancient species, long extinct elsewhere, live on. After aeons of adversity, Australia’s living fossils often survive only in protected habitats: the Wollemi, Huon and King Billy pines, the Queensland lungfish and even the Tasmanian devil (which thrived on the mainland at the same time as the Egyptians were building the pyramids) are good examples. Such species are a source of wonder for anyone interested in the living world and they should serve as a source of hope that, given half a chance, even ancient, slow-changing species can survive periods of dramatic climate change.
Australia’s largest repository of living fossils is arguably the cool, shallow marine waters off its southern coastline. Despite that fact that most of us enjoy a swim, snorkel or walk on the beach, the biological importance of our shallow temperate seas is almost entirely unrecognised.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/06/2025 - 14:06
04/06/2025 - 11:28
Energoatom CEO, Petro Kotin, says ‘major problems’ need to be overcome before it can safely generate power
It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the vast six-reactor site has said.
Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said in an interview there were “major problems” to overcome – including insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply – before it could start generating power again safely.
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04/06/2025 - 10:00
Exclusive: State makes no admissions as it settles case with activist who alleged police misconduct during 2019 arrest at Melbourne mining conference
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A climate protester who alleged their head was repeatedly slammed by members of Victoria police’s riot squad in 2019 has reached a settlement with the state.
Timothy Buchanan, 39, alleged their head was slammed into a metal wall, the ground and a glass door that their head was then used to open, during their arrest at a protest at an international mining conference in Melbourne.
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04/06/2025 - 10:00
Eva Czislowski, a student and activist, says Carnaby’s black cockatoos used to blacken the sky. ‘I can't believe that I won't be able to experience that,' she says. The endemic WA bird is just one of 2,000 Australian species listed as under threat, in what scientists are calling an extinction crisis
From blackening skies to barely casting a shadow – the Carnaby’s cockatoo faces a bleak future
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04/06/2025 - 09:00
A wildlife crossing across the 101 freeway will connect two parts of the Santa Monica mountains for animals
Above the whirring of 300,000 cars each day on Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, an ambitious project is taking shape. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing is the largest wildlife bridge in the world at 210ft long and 174ft wide, and this week it’s had help taking shape: soil.
“This is the soul of the project,” says Beth Pratt, the regional executive director, California, at the National Wildlife Federation, who has worked on making the crossing become a reality over the last 13 years. She says she’s seen many milestones, like the 26m pounds of concrete poured to create the structure, but this one is special.
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04/06/2025 - 01:14
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Labor targets cost of living and climate with $2.3bn household battery pledge
Coalition dumps Liberal candidate who said women should not serve in ADF combat roles
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Greens to push for free early childhood education
The federal Greens have named access to free, universal early childhood education as one of their priority policies in the event of a minority government.
In a wealthy country like ours everyone should be able to afford childcare, but too many families are struggling with the cost.
What Labor’s doing isn’t working, and Peter Dutton would take childcare backwards.
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04/06/2025 - 00:30
If a car generates more potholes, takes up more space and poses more risk, it is only fair that its owner pays more
Britain is facing an unusual crisis: carspreading. Our road vehicles are getting bigger as people buy more and more SUVs of increasing dimensions and weight. At the same time, our streets and parking places remain the same size.
The consequences of this uncontrolled vehicular expansion have become profound. Potholes are being created in greater numbers as our roads are pounded by heavier vehicles; multiple parking spaces are being taken over by single, giant cars; and road accidents are now producing more severe injuries to drivers and passengers of other vehicles. This last issue is of particular concern.
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04/05/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 06 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00113-w
Effects of anthropogenic noise on marine mammal abundances informed by mixed methods
04/05/2025 - 12:00
Constitutional expert says Tory leader’s break from political consensus over target for greenhouse gasses will require monarch to choose his words carefully
King Charles will have to temper his public support for net zero after Kemi Badenoch broke the political consensus over the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Senior royal sources have conceded that the 76-year-old monarch, who has spent more than half a century highlighting environmental challenges, will have to choose his words more carefully now that the Conservatives under Badenoch have said it will be impossible for the UK to hit net zero by 2050.
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04/05/2025 - 08:00
Many of the suburbs and cities hit hardest in recent years were caught off-guard, and key stakeholders are racing to understand the dynamics that drive these fires
Communities across the US that were once considered beyond the reach of wildfires are now vulnerable to disaster. As fires increasingly spread deep into neighborhoods, researchers estimate roughly 115 million people – more than a third of the US population – live in areas that could host the next fire catastrophe.
The understanding that many more Americans are at risk of losing their homes to wildfires comes as the climate crisis turns up the dial on extreme weather, drought and heat. But it’s also the result of new research that has exposed deep and dangerous gaps in our understanding of the threat.
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