Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Blankets of colour: Western Australia’s wildflower season bursts to life – in pictures

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 15:00:08 +0000

On Wajarri Yamaji country in WA’s remote mid-west sits Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. This year, early winter rains have left the telescopes surrounded by a carpet of splendid native blooms

The bird that changed Ecuador: how a chance discovery of a rare species helped to save many more

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 13:00:05 +0000

Thirty years after a US ornithologist first sighted a jocotoco antpitta, the foundation he set up to restore biodiversity is a model for conservation globally

I have to confess that I rarely enjoy birding in montane cloud forests. The birds that live in these mountainous, cool and humid habitats are masters of disguise, usually passing themselves off as a leaf or other form of foliage. But if I want to see antpittas – elusive, ground-dwelling birds that rarely show themselves – then I have no choice.

Think of the parable of a frog in boiling water. That’s us dithering as the ‘unprecedented‘ weather becomes more extreme | Helen Pilcher

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 07:00:01 +0000

The complacency is staggering: just another hot summer, a flooded street, a crop failure. We are accepting this extraordinary deterioration as normal

Recently, I overheard a conversation in a cafe where someone described their toast as “awesome”. I felt myself bristle. Not because the toast wasn’t good – I didn’t taste it – but because I remember a time when “awesome” meant something that inspired awe: towering mountains, the vastness of the night sky, the haunting song of a humpback whale. Now it’s being used to describe breakfast.

First H5 bird flu death of endangered Australian sea lion recorded amid fears for small population

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 05:04:52 +0000

South Australian authorities say case discovered on Kangaroo Island is first for species of which less than 12,000 animals remain

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South Australia has recorded the first death of an endangered Australian sea lion from H5 bird flu.

We know how to prevent black lung, so why are workers still dying?

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:00:34 +0000

Silicosis sufferers are getting younger as Trump and the coal mining industry push back on protections

Silicosis is one of the oldest workplace hazards and public health experts have known for decades how to prevent it. Yet a new wave of workers, from Appalachian coalminers to Latino countertop fabrication workers, are developing and dying from the disease as industry fights new protections and regulators fail to defend the rules that could protect them.

Heatwaves hit the Sunday roast: why the RHS says cauliflower is off the menu

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:00:32 +0000

Charity urges gardeners in England to swap thirsty brassicas for drought-tolerant crops

They are an integral part of the British Sunday roast – but cauliflowers are now going to be off the menu, according to the Royal Horticultural Society.

England’s climate has changed so much that the RHS is now recommending that gardeners exclude the brassicas from their vegetable patches.

Steve Jones on the pros and cons of AI datacentres – cartoon

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 10:00:31 +0000

Artist delights in beautiful ‘mess’ and dead trees of England’s rewilding sites

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 05:00:24 +0000

Rebecca Howard spent two years visiting projects and painting landscapes that feature in West Sussex exhibition

Rewilding areas do not usually conform to traditional notions of beauty in England’s green and pleasant land. Detractors may bewail the beaver-felled trees, untidy scrub, deadwood, weeds, mud and “mess”.

But a new exhibition highlights the aesthetic delights that can be discovered on rewilding sites where fungi grows on dying trees, water buffalo gather in new wetlands and brown-watered beaver pools flood once-desiccated fields.

Aligning Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures and Open Science for FAIR and sustainable ocean knowledge systems

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 12 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00246-6

Aligning Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures and Open Science for FAIR and sustainable ocean knowledge systems

North Sea gasfield decision likely delayed until after Holborn and St Pancras byelection

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:50:25 +0000

Greens accuse Labour of hiding position to avoid criticism before contest, in which Zack Polanski is standing

A decision on approving the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea is to be delayed until later this autumn, with the Greens accusing Labour of hiding their position before the crucial Holborn and St Pancras byelection.