Breaking Waves: Ocean News

How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness

admin — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:00:06 +0000

A car is often essential in the US but while owning a vehicle is better than not for life satisfaction, a study has found, having to drive too much sends happiness plummeting

The United States, with its enormous highways, sprawling suburbs and neglected public transport systems, is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. But this arrangement of obligatory driving is making many Americans actively unhappy, new research has found.

Kew Gardens adds over 300 wild seeds in significant boost to living collection

admin — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 08:00:01 +0000

In 2024 horticulturalists made single biggest introduction of rare seeds to collection in the past decade

The Codonopsis clematidea smells like a skunk, the Tulipa toktogulica has a peculiar, elongated bulb and the Fritillaria imperialis is exceptionally tall. But to the horticulturalists who journeyed to remote alpine meadows and forests to find these rare flowers growing in the wild this year, they are nothing less than the “jewels of the earth”.

Australia’s best agency photography for 2024 – in pictures

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 23:00:50 +0000

Protests, Taylor Swift and chubby penguins are all part of the best images from the wire agencies in 2024

More summer essentials

Youth pastor identified as man who died after shark bite off Queensland coast

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 20:32:48 +0000

The 40-year-old school chaplain was bitten by the shark while fishing with family in waters off Keppel Islands on Saturday

I figured out how to use two-thirds less water — and it only took a week to set up

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 16:00:44 +0000

Read more from My DIY climate hack, a series on everyday people’s creative solutions to the climate crisis

While droughts are a natural feature of California’s climate, human-induced warming has made them even drier.

‘They’re stuck’: Cape Cod seeing more whale, turtle and dolphin strandings

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:00:43 +0000

Changing tides have led to an increase of beached marine life, whom rescuers scramble to save before they die

While Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is known as a popular vacation destination in the north-east US, it has built a reputation for an entirely different reason this year: animal strandings.

‘When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor’: the architect viewing the West Midlands as a national park

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:00:37 +0000

Birmingham City University thinktank imagines new approach to urban areas and land use across the region

“When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor,” says landscape architecture professor Kathryn Moore with a smile.

She is pointing at a map of the West Midlands. But instead of buildings, roads and a sprawling canal network, this map shows the natural hills and undulations that lie below the human-made architecture.

‘We have to change our attitude’: wildlife expert says rhino horn trade must be legalised

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 11:59:47 +0000

Call for illicit market to be taken out of hands of criminals as numbers continue to fall drastically due to poaching

International trade in rhino horns should be legalised, a leading wildlife expert has urged.

Writing in the research journal Science, Martin Wikelski argues only carefully monitored, legitimate transactions in horns can save the world’s remaining species of rhinoceros.

English wildlife ‘could be disappearing in the dark’ due to lack of scrutiny

admin — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 05:00:28 +0000

Conservationists issue warning as figures show three-quarters of SSSI sites have had no recent assessments

Conservationists have said wildlife could be “disappearing in the dark” after figures showed that three-quarters of England’s most precious habitats, wildlife and natural features have had no recent assessment of their condition.

Weather tracker: Storm brings well over a metre of snow to peaks in Alps

admin — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:05:35 +0000

Several days of snow brought avalanche risk at Christmas, as wintry weather also caused four deaths in India