Modern life is waging a war against ecosystems around us and inside us. Keeping our own microbes healthy is another reason to demand action to preserve the natural world
Human bodies are like cities, teeming with microcitizens – vast communities of viruses, fungi and bacteria that live all over our skin and inside us. Unsung public servants help us digest food, regulate our immune system, defend against pathogens, and keep hormones in check. Together, they make up what we call the human microbiome.
Most people have probably heard of the gut microbiome, but different microbes thrive all over our bodies – in our nostrils, on our feet, in our eyes. They are slightly different, like boroughs are composed of different communities of people. Ninety per cent of cells in our body are microbes, and “clouds” of bacteria come off someone’s body as they enter a room. We are all walking ecosystems, picking up and shedding material as we move through life.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/31/2025 - 04:00
10/31/2025 - 03:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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10/31/2025 - 02:50
Category 5 storm is most powerful to strike Jamaica and has caused death and destruction in Cuba and Haiti
Hurricane Melissa has wreaked havoc across parts of the Caribbean in recent days, after first making landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday night as a category 5 storm – the highest strength. This was the most powerful storm to strike the island nation, packing winds of up to 185mph at its peak.
Western parts of Jamaica were worst hit, with 90% of homes in the town of Black River losing their roof or being destroyed entirely. Roughly three-quarters of the country lost electricity, with at least 19 people known to have lost their lives at the time of publication. The cleanup operation was hampered by thunderstorms even after Melissa cleared to the north. The hurricane continued northwards, but was a slightly weakened category 3 storm by the time it made landfall in Cuba. Nonetheless, the storm continued to bring winds of up to 120mph and torrential rains.
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10/30/2025 - 23:43
Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin are predicted to hit hottest October in terms of maximum temperatures, the Bureau of Meteorology says
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Queensland and the Northern Territory are on track for their warmest October on record against “every measure”, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Across the country it had been a “pretty unusual month”, a senior climatologist at the BoM, Hugh McDowell, said.
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10/30/2025 - 19:54
Flooding that killed 10 people in central Vietnam this week turned streets in the historic town of Hoi An into canals on Thursday after a major river reached a 60-year high, authorities say. The Unesco heritage-listed town is among the country’s most popular tourist destinations
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10/30/2025 - 18:39
Sydney researchers commercialising a product they say can cool indoor spaces and will cost little more than standard premium paints
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Australian scientists have developed roof coatings that can passively cool surfaces up to 6C below ambient temperature, as well as extract water from the atmosphere, which they say could reduce indoor temperatures during extreme heat events.
Heatwaves are becoming more intense, more frequent and more deadly due to human-caused global heating.
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10/30/2025 - 12:52
‘It’s hard to fathom how a peaceful protester can receive more prison time than many of the insurrectionists,’ said one researcher, of Timothy Martin’s sentence
Climate activists have condemned an 18-month jail term for a nonviolent protester who vandalized a display case at the National Gallery of Art as “grossly disproportionate” and a violation of the constitutional protected rights to free speech and peaceful protest.
Timothy Martin, along with fellow activist Joanna Smith, staged the climate protest at the Washington DC gallery in April 2023, smearing washable red and black paint on the protective glass covering Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen Years sculpture.
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10/30/2025 - 09:55
Expanded climate action from cities and states could slash planet-heating pollution despite Trump working against it
Ahead of next month’s major United Nations climate talks in Brazil, Gina McCarthy, the former Environmental Protection Agency head, said US cities and states were keeping the climate fight alive despite an all-out assault from the Trump administration.
“We will not allow our country to become numb or debilitated by those who are standing in the way of progress,” she said on a press call early on Thursday.
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10/30/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: ‘Every project developer is absolutely convinced that their project is in the national interest,’ Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation boss says
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The former Treasury secretary Ken Henry says “a conga line of developers” would lobby the environment minister for special carve-outs unless the Albanese government clarifies the types of projects that could be granted exemptions under its new nature laws.
While welcoming the overall package of laws introduced to parliament on Thursday, Henry said the vague drafting of the “national interest” exemption and the failure to close loopholes for native forest logging and land clearing were problems that needed to be fixed.
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10/30/2025 - 09:00
Centre for Independent Studies points to climate risk report to back up its dismissal of heat-related deaths, but neglects to use the part that actually concerns the future
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When is a thing that is definitely a thing, not a thing? When you’re a thinktank trying to convince Coalition MPs they shouldn’t be backing policies to help Australia reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
As reported by Guardian Australia, the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) gave a presentation to Coalition MPs in Canberra this week, telling them “heat deaths aren’t a thing” as part of a briefing to convince them to go cold on policies to get greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.
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