Coral larvae production drops by 90 percent after marine heat waves – “We used to think that the Great Barrier Reef was too big to fail – until now”

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). […]

Sea turtles are being born mostly female due to warming – “I can’t deny it: seeing those results scared the crap out of me”

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 […]

Big cities, bright lights and up to 1 billion bird collisions each year in the U.S.

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 […]

Ocean heatwaves threaten survival of dolphins – “The reproductive success of females appears to have not returned to normal levels, even after six years”

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 […]

“Doomsday vault” town warming faster than any other on Earth – “The brutality of nature used to bring joy, but now it scares people”

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 […]

Photo gallery: Exxon Valdez oil spill, 30 years later

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 […]

Direct killing by humans pushing Earth’s biggest animals toward extinction – “70% of megafauna species are decreasing and 59% are threatened with extinction”

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” […]

Gene scientists call for moratorium on heritable genome editing – “Genetic enhancement could divide humans into subspecies”

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 […]

3-5°C temperature rise is now “locked-in” for the Arctic

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 […]

Heatwaves sweeping oceans “like wildfires”, scientists reveal – “You see the kelp and seagrasses dying in front of you. Within weeks or months they are just gone, along hundreds of kilometres of coastline.”

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, […]

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