Every autumn, Corvo Island in the Azores turns off its public lighting for a few key days to help fledgling Cory’s shearwaters as they attempt to fly to the ocean guided by the stars
Once a year, Corvo, the smallest and most northerly island of Portugal’s Azores archipelago, goes dark. Since 2019, the island’s 450 or so inhabitants have chosen to switch off the lights every autumn for five nights to tackle the disastrous effects of artificial light on Cory’s shearwaters, a seabird endemic to the Atlantic Ocean.
It began in 1991 when the community noticed huge numbers of deaths among young shearwaters.
A newborn Cory’s shearwater chick
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/25/2026 - 06:00
10/24/2026 - 17:40
Fresh deluge of wet weather comes after Storm Austen brought strong winds to many regions on Friday
Amber weather warnings have come into force as the worst of Storm Boelo could be set to hit parts of the UK.
Storm Boelo’s winds will peak from Saturday evening, leaving areas in the warning zone, including Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland and the far north of England, braced for gusts of 60-70mph and even 80mph in exposed coastal spots, the Met Office said.
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10/24/2026 - 14:00
An ‘audit’ of the Bureau of Meteorology main dataset for measuring climate change claims it contains ‘widespread errors’. It doesn’t stack up
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Australia’s climate has warmed by more than 1.5C since 1910, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s main long-term temperature data.
If you were so motivated, you might think if you could discredit this data, then you would undermine the whole climate change story and even – perhaps – the rationale for cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
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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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