State’s beloved but under-pressure sea cows were barely recorded in the area before seas warmed in the late 1700s
Manatees, long considered among Florida’s most beloved and enchanting inhabitants, are not native at all, and only came to the Sunshine state for warm temperatures and clear blue waters like any other visitor, researchers have found.
The surprise revelation by scientists at the University of South Florida (USF) and George Washington University (GWU) upends decades of thinking about the origins of the threatened species, once plentiful around the Florida peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/02/2025 - 07:00
01/02/2025 - 07:00
Across Toronto, a team sets out at dawn to rescue migrating birds that have collided with buildings, and keep a record of the thousands each year that don’t make it
Every morning at dawn, a dozen volunteers scour the streets of Toronto picking up small birds. Some days they will find hundreds of them, most already dead or dying. A few they are able to save. Live birds are put in brown paper bags and driven to wildlife recovery centres, while dead birds are put in a large freezer. If no one picks them up, their carcasses are swept up by street cleaners.
“One of my first days was really horrific,” says Sohail Desai, a volunteer with the charity Fatal Light Awareness Program (Flap) Canada, which has about 135 people patrolling the streets across Toronto. Desai was walking close to his house in the North York area in Toronto when a flock of golden-crowned kinglets flew into a 15-storey glass building.
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01/02/2025 - 03:00
Bowhead whales may not be the only species that can live to 200 years old. Researchers have found that the industrial hunting of great whales has masked the ability of these underwater giants to also live to great ages
In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville’s epic novel of 1851, the author asks if whales would survive the remorseless human hunt. Yes, he says, as he foresees a future flooded world in which the whale would outlive us and “spout his frothed defiance to the skies”.
Moby Dick was a grizzled old sperm whale that had miraculously escaped the harpoons. But a new scientific paper is set to prove what oceanic peoples – such as the Inuit, Maōri and Haida – have long believed: that whales are capable of living for a very long time. Indeed, many more than we thought possible may have been born before Melville wrote his book.
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01/02/2025 - 01:00
Society to retire plants no longer suited to UK’s changing climate after 14% fewer days of ground frost recorded
Fig and almond trees are thriving in Britain as a result of fewer frosts, the Royal Horticultural Society has said.
The lack of frost, one of the effects of climate breakdown, means plants used to warmer climes have been doing well in RHS gardens. Almond trees from the Mediterranean were planted at Wisley in Surrey several years ago, and without frost this year have fruited well for the first time.
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01/01/2025 - 21:48
Rise in greenhouse gases responsible for average temperatures rising to 1.46C above average, with one climate scientist saying this is ‘the norm now’
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Last year was Australia’s second-hottest on record going back to 1910 and the warmest for night-time temperatures, according to official Bureau of Meteorology data.
The average temperature across the country in 2024 was 1.46C above the long-term average, calculated from 1961 to 1990, and was second behind the 1.51C record set in 2019.
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01/01/2025 - 19:19
I want to give my kids that overarching sense of a single summer going on all through childhood, a door to a memory they can open any time
More summer essentials
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You never step into the same river twice. But you can step into the same ocean, or so it seems, each January when we take that first swim: ducking our heads under a wave to feel the rush of cold and the sting of salt, shaking like dogs when we emerge, washed clean of the year just gone.
When I was a child, it was Phillip Island: a green canvas tent in my grandfather’s back yard; a chipped foam surfboard rasping against my skin as I lay on it, just floating in the channel between the island and the mainland, never daring to go into the actual surf. It was the acrid smoke of mozzie coils and the oily texture of the battered flake from the fish and chip shop. Showers under the tank stand; the sun burning our skin until it peeled.
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Jenny Sinclair is a Melbourne journalist and writer of creative nonfiction and fiction
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01/01/2025 - 18:13
Hadi Nazari, 23, last seen on Boxing Day descending the challenging Hannels Spur track
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Hopes are dwindling that a missing hiker will be found alive as experts warn of the rough terrain and scarce water availability.
The 23-year-old hiker, Hadi Nazari, was descending a challenging trail in the Kosciuszko national park about 2.30pm on Boxing Day when he was last seen by friends, who raised the alarm when he did not arrive at the campground where they arranged to meet.
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01/01/2025 - 10:00
Emboldened red states could advocate for rightwing reforms from steep tax cuts to slashes to education
Republican state lawmakers and conservative leaders around the United States see Donald Trump’s re-election as a mandate that will help them enact rightwing policies in Republican-run states across the US.
The policies include steep tax cuts, environmental legislation, religion in schools and legislation concerning transgender medical care and education, among other hot-button social issues.
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01/01/2025 - 10:00
New research suggests parasitic infections in US south are far more widespread than previously acknowledged
For years, Marecitta Dorsey’s four children – ages seven to 14 – suffered regular bouts of nausea, vomiting and sore stomachs. Their unexplained symptoms were bad enough to keep them out of school a few days each month.
“My eldest would tell me, ‘I feel like my tummy’s burning,’” recalled Dorsey. “Every week I was taking at least one kid to the doctor because of something with their stomach.”
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01/01/2025 - 09:00
With the climate crisis hitting Britain, we must build resilience at a local level by rewilding, saving water and fighting floods
Imagine, for a moment, if 2025 was the year that the UK achieved its legally binding targets of reducing dangerous carbon emissions to zero. Imagine if the Extinction Rebellions of 2019 had achieved their goal, and the government had bowed to the pressure of climate activism to meet this target. In this counterfactual reality, the world would be much saner than our own. But as the new year arrives, we’re forced to confront a stark reality. Britain is nowhere near achieving zero carbon in the next 12 months.
When Extinction Rebellion (XR) was founded in 2018, the 2025 target was conceived as a clarion call to action. It was based on the need to decarbonise quickly, to mitigate the worst impacts of climate decline, and to fulfil our historical responsibility as one of the world’s largest polluters. With the new year upon us, it’s clear that decarbonisation at the scale and speed we imagined isn’t a feasible goal within our existing political and economic frameworks. And this failure brings with it some uncomfortable truths that everyone concerned about the climate crisis must face head-on. And that means, in effect, everyone: for even if you don’t feel affected by this crisis, it still affects you.
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