The old saying about late summer rain being good for vineyards and bees may be plausible
Each month has its weather folklore, and according to one old saying: “When it rains in August, it rains honey and wine.”
Historically, vineyards were not irrigated, and some winemakers believe natural rainfall is needed to keep the all-important terroir characteristic of a particular area. Irrigation increases the grape yield, potentially quadrupling the weight per hectare, but supposedly reduces wine quality. Similarly drought years are sometimes said to produce the best vintages.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/27/2025 - 23:00
In the waters of the Johor strait, Indigenous communities are struggling to survive as nearby cities expand and fishing stocks dwindle
Words and photographs by Izzy Sasada
Aween Bin Terawin submerges himself in the mangrove swamp to reach a crab cage on the riverbed below. After a moment of suspense, he lifts the cage above the water’s surface and inspects its interior. Empty.
After stowing the collapsible cage away in his boat, he continues his journey through the vast swamp to retrieve the 40 cages he set early that morning, each marked by a floating bottle tied to string.
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08/27/2025 - 09:41
A group of farmers, bikers, truckers and scientists from the political left and right are working to bring attention to the health risks of using toxic sludge as fertilizer
An unlikely alliance of farmers, bikers, truckers, a detective and scientists from across the political spectrum are working to pressure the Trump administration and Republican leadership to rein in the use of toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer on the nation’s farmland.
Sludge often teems with Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, which present a health risk to farmers and the public, and have destroyed farms and contaminated water across the country. The issue has touched the groups’ lives in different ways, highlighting its broad risks to health.
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08/27/2025 - 09:33
Aerial footage shows thick plumes of smoke from wildfires raging in the northern Spanish region of Asturias.
Wildfires have burned more than a million hectares (2.5m acres) of land in the European Union this year so far, the highest amount in any year since official records began in 2006, EU data showed.
Spain and Portugal have been worst hit and together accounted for about two-thirds of the EU's burnt area
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08/27/2025 - 06:00
A professor teamed up with student musicians to inspire interest in data about the ‘catastrophic scale’ of the crisis
A university professor has set her team’s research on the plight of Florida’s declining oyster population to music, aiming to inform a receptive new audience about the “catastrophic” scale of the crisis.
Heather O’Leary, professor of anthropology at St Petersburg’s University of South Florida (USF), partnered with student composers and faculty from its music department to create Oysters Ain’t Safe, a soft jazz alternative to crunching data into a “boring” technical report.
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08/27/2025 - 04:00
Localised rises in temperature caused by land clearance cause 28,330 heat-related deaths a year, researchers find
Deforestation has killed more than half a million people in the tropics over the past two decades as a result of heat-related illness, a study has found.
Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found.
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08/27/2025 - 03:51
Thinktank predicts wider inequality gap and calls for revised policies to tackle flying and excess private car use
Inequality in transport emissions between the richest and the poorest in the UK is set to widen dramatically over the next decade, an analysis has found.
The most affluent and mobile already produce 10 times more carbon through their domestic travel than the poorest and least mobile. Under current decarbonisation policies, thinktank researchers forecast this to grow to 13 times by 2035.
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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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