Talk about climate whiplash
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/18/2026 - 19:28
01/18/2026 - 12:58
Errors in measuring microplastic pollution can be corrected. Public trust in science also needs to be shored up
It is true that science is self-correcting. Over the long term this means that we can generally trust its results – but up close, correction can be a messy process. The Guardian reported last week that 20 recent studies measuring the amount of micro- and nanoplastics in the human body have been criticised in the scientific literature for methodological issues, calling their results into question. In one sense this is the usual process playing out as it should. However, the scale of the potential error – one scientist estimates that half the high-impact papers in the field are affected – suggests a systemic problem that should have been prevented.
The risk is that in a febrile political atmosphere in which trust in science is being actively eroded on issues from climate change to vaccinations, even minor scientific conflicts can be used to sow further doubt. Given that there is immense public and media interest in plastic pollution, it is unfortunate that scientists working in this area did not show more caution.
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01/18/2026 - 09:00
Vegan restaurants are closing, RFK Jr is sounding the drum for carnivores, and the protein cult is bigger than ever. But eschewing animal products helps me ward off a sense of impotence – and despair
Let’s get this out of the way, because I’m itching to tell you (again): I’m vegan, and this is our time, Veganuary! Imagine me doing a weak, vitamin B12-depleted dance. Unlike gym-goers, vegans are thrilled when newbies sign up each January, for planetary and animal welfare reasons, but also, shallowly, for the shopping. This is when we can gorge on the novelties retailers dream up: Peta’s round-up for this year includes the seductive Aldi pains au chocolat and M&S coconut kefir.
I need retail therapy, because Veganuary has become quite muted and that’s part of a wider inflection point in vegan eating that I’m sad about. “Where have all the vegans gone?” Dazed asked in November, and now New York Magazine has investigated, with the tagline: “Plant-based eating was supposed to be the future. Then meat came roaring back.” It details a wave of vegan restaurant closures (plus the high-profile reverse ferret performed by formerly vegan Michelin-three-starred Eleven Madison Park to serving “animal products for certain dishes”), declining sales of meat substitutes and a stubbornly static percentage of people identifying as vegan (around 1%). It’s not new (rumours of veganism’s demise have been swirling around since at least 2024) and it’s not just a US phenomenon; many UK vegan restaurants have closed this year, including my lovely local.
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01/18/2026 - 02:00
Tony Cholerton created Robovacc to inoculate a timid tiger at London zoo – but says it could administer jabs to badgers
It began with the tiger who wouldn’t come to tea. Cinta was so shy that she refused to feed when keepers at London zoo were around, and staff wondered how they would ever administer the young animal’s vaccinations without traumatising her.
So Tony Cholerton, a zookeeper who had been a motorcycle engineer for many years, invented Robovacc – a machine to quickly administer vital jabs without the presence of people.
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01/17/2026 - 10:00
Guardian analysis shows electricity bills were up 6.7% last year, and much higher in some states, and gas bills up 5.2%
Trump’s failed energy bill pledge leaves US households struggling: ‘It’s obscene’
Donald Trump has comprehensively failed to meet a key election promise to slash Americans’ energy bills in half within the first year of his presidency, with power prices instead surging across the US.
The average household electricity bill in the US was 6.7% more expensive in 2025 compared with the previous year, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Department of Energy’s statistical arm. The increases meant that, on average, US households paid nearly $116 more across 2025 than they did in 2024.
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01/17/2026 - 02:00
In historic speech to mark UN’s 80th anniversary, secretary general makes impassioned plea for multilateralism and international law amid drastic US funding cuts
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, will warn on Saturday of the peril posed by “powerful forces lining up to undermine global cooperation” in an address to mark the 80th anniversary of the UN’s first major meeting.
Speaking in London’s Methodist Central Hall – the site where eight decades earlier delegates from 51 countries came together for the inaugural session of the general assembly – the UN head will make an impassioned plea for the virtues of multilateralism and international law to prevail during a period of deepening global uncertainty.
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01/17/2026 - 01:00
As international treaty comes into force, bill to make it law in Britain is moving at ‘glacial pace’ through parliament
The UK risks being shut out of a historic oceans summit because parliament has failed to ratify the UN’s high seas treaty, environmental charities and campaigners have warned.
The high seas treaty, formally known as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, comes into force on Saturday, after two decades of talks.
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01/17/2026 - 01:00
Virunga park ranger says babies are well cared for by mother Mafuko but high infant mortality makes first weeks critical
It was noon by the time Jacques Katutu first saw the newborn mountain gorillas. Cradled in the arms of their mother, Mafuko, the tiny twins clung to her body for warmth in the forest clearing in Virunga national park, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring in Virunga, has seen dozens of newborns in his 15 years as a ranger. But, he tells the Guardian, even he was touched by the sight of the fragile infant males, who face serious obstacles if they are to become silverbacks one day.
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01/10/2026 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 10 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00179-6
Reimagining coral reef futures
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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