4 April 2019 (James Cook University) – The damage caused to the Great Barrier Reef by global warming has compromised the capacity of its corals to recover, according to new research published today in Nature. “Dead corals don’t make babies,” said lead author Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (JCU). […]
By Craig Welch 4 April 2019 (National Geographic) – She started out studying tree-climbing marsupials, but only after she applied what she knew to marine reptiles did Camryn Allen actually get worried. Allen, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Hawaii, had spent her early career using hormones to track koala bear […]
By Lindsey Feingold 7 April 2019 (NPR) – Up to 1 billion birds die from building collisions each year in the United States, and according to a new study, bright lights in big cities are making the problem worse. The study, published this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, examined two-decades […]
1 April 2019 (UZH) – An unprecedented marine heatwave had long-lasting negative impacts on both survival and birth rates on the iconic dolphin population in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Researchers at UZH have now documented that climate change may have more far-reaching consequences for the conservation of marine mammals than previously thought. Shark Bay in […]
By Sarah Lazarus 27 March 2019 (CNN) – In 2014, Mark Sabbatini noticed cracks in his apartment walls. Then a mysterious bulge appeared in his bedroom and the apartment block’s communal staircase became crooked. “Doors and windows weren’t shutting properly,” he says. Sabbatini, the editor of a local newspaper, was living in Longyearbyen, the world’s […]
By Johnny Simon 22 March 2019 (Quartz) – On 24 March 1989 the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. It was the worst oil spill in US history until 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster pumped nearly 20 times that amount into the […]
By Steve Lundeberg30 January 2019 CORVALLIS, Oregon (OSU) – One hundred forty-three species of large animals are decreasing in number and 171 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans’ meat consumption habits are primarily to blame. Findings published today in Conservation Letters involved an analysis of 292 species of “megafauna” […]
13 March 2019 (Nature) – We call for a global moratorium on all clinical uses of human germline editing — that is, changing heritable DNA (in sperm, eggs or embryos) to make genetically modified children. By ‘global moratorium’, we do not mean a permanent ban. Rather, we call for the establishment of an international framework […]
Nairobi, 13 March 2019 (UN News) – Even if the world were to cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, winter temperatures in the Arctic would rise 3-5°C by 2050 and 5-9°C by 2080, devastating the region and unleashing sea level rises worldwide, finds a new report by UN Environment. Meanwhile, rapidly thawing permafrost […]
By Damian Carrington 4 March 2019 (The Guardian) – The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”. The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, […]