Breaking Waves: Ocean News

A hundred incredible images have been shortlisted by the South Australian Museum as part of this year’s Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition. In its 23rd year, the competition attracted 2,129 entries from 501 photographers in 17 countries. Entries were accepted covering content from across the ANZANG bioregion – Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea Continue reading...

The country’s biggest tree – named Heaven Sword of the Da’an River – is a carbon-storing behemoth hosting whole neighbourhoods of wildlife. But this and other giant trees are under threat The higher you climb up the gigantic, millennia-old trees of Taiwan’s forests, the more layers of habitat and life emerge. On the forest floor, ferns thrive in the moist shade. Flying squirrels and owls sleep inside the hollow tree trunks. Yellow bell-shaped rhododendron flowers spring from the lower tree canopy. Higher still, dense lichen spread. Up in cloud-drenched branches, a rare, hardy orchid, Bulbophyllum ciliisepalum, can be spotted. “In one tree, every species has their preferred location,” says Dr Rebecca Hsu, assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. “Every metre the temperature, the wind, the sun, the light is different.” Continue reading...

People in southern Wales and area of England from Kent and Sussex to Somerset and Birmingham urged to protect themselves from extreme heat The UK’s Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity. It covers southern Wales as far west as Swansea, and an area of England that includes London and runs from the inland areas of Kent and Sussex, all the way across to Somerset, as far north-west as Birmingham, and as far north-east as southern Cambridgeshire. Continue reading...

A national heatwave plan has been activated to help people stay cool during the Netherlands’ increasingly hot summers Households in Amsterdam are being urged to hang their curtains outside their windows as health experts recommend simple hacks to moderate the heatwave rolling across the Netherlands, where homes were built for old-fashioned damp and coldish northern European weather. In a viral social media post last week, Eline Coolen, the heat coordinator at the city’s public health institute, urged sweaty city-dwellers to rig up temporary curtain rails or drape curtains or sheets outside to stop the sun’s rays reaching their large windows. Continue reading...