Traditional methods benefit hundreds of species but as new agricultural techniques take over, the distinctive haystacks mark a vanishing way of life
Golden haystacks shaped like teardrops have been a symbol of rural life in Romania for hundreds of years. The 3-metre-high (10ft) stacks are the culmination of days of hard work by families, from children up to grandparents, in the height of summer.
Together they cut waist-high grass, leave it to dry in the hot sun and stack it up to be stored over the winter, combing the hay downwards to protect it from harsh winds, heavy rain and snow. Throughout winter, clumps of it are removed from the haystacks and fed to livestock.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/02/2025 - 23:00
04/02/2025 - 21:31
ANU climate scientist says ‘everyone is getting fatigued these records keep falling – it’s now incredibly predictable’
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Australia has experienced its hottest 12-month period on record, ending with its hottest March on record, with last month seeing temperatures 2.41C above average, the Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed.
The bureau said its data going back to 1910 showed the 12 months ending in March 2025 averaged 1.61C above average – the hottest of any 12-month period, beating the previous 1.51C mark set from January to December 2019.
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04/02/2025 - 20:47
Animals affected by domoic acid are known to exhibit erratic behavior and poisonings are becoming frequent
A teenager was attacked by a sea lion in southern California, raising concerns that a recent increase in algae-induced poisonings among marine mammals could have elicited the erratic behavior.
Phoebe Beltran initially feared it was a shark when she was bitten repeatedly during a 1000-yard swim test for the Junior Lifeguards cadet program in Long Beach on 30 March. Relatives onshore saw the sea lion pop its head out of the water before it swam away, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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04/02/2025 - 12:39
Reports predict global heating will bring catastrophes and that air conditioning market could grow by 41%
The world is on track for disastrous global heating – but this will create profits for some air conditioning companies, according to forecasts by leading Wall Street financial institutions.
Recent reports by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance all make clear the finance sector considers the Paris climate agreement limiting global temperatures, signed a decade ago by nearly 200 nations, is effectively dead and investors should plan accordingly.
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04/02/2025 - 11:24
Buzzing insects may be seen as pests -- but globally, hundreds of fly species migrate over long distances, with major benefits for people and nature, new research shows.
04/02/2025 - 11:00
Hurricane Helene proved a hard truth: a freezer of seeds is the literal version of putting all your eggs in one basket
About a month after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last fall, Rodger Winn and I met in an Asheville, North Carolina, supermarket parking lot. He’d driven two hours from Little Mountain, South Carolina, where the passing storm had also left its destructive mark.
“When the power finally came back on,” Winn said, “two of my freezers didn’t work.” Winn was worried not about spoiled food inside, but his seed collection. On that autumn day, in an act of forced downsizing and seed philanthropy, Winn handed over two boxes filled with seeds. He wanted me, as founder of the non-profit Utopian Seed Project, to share the seeds with farmers across the region. The boxes contained a trove of Appalachian varieties: speckled field peas, white mountain half-runner beans, purple-podded bush beans and lots of butterbeans.
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04/02/2025 - 10:50
Appeal court finds in favour of anglers who said plans to clean up river were so vague as to be totally ineffectual
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A group of anglers trying to restore the ecosystem of a river have seen off a challenge by the environment secretary, Steve Reed, who claimed that cleaning up the waterway was administratively unworkable.
Reed pursued an appeal against a group of anglers from North Yorkshire, who had won a legal case arguing that the government and the Environment Agency’s plans to clean up the Upper Costa Beck, a former trout stream devastated by sewage pollution and runoff, were so vague they were ineffectual.
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04/02/2025 - 09:00
If Peter Dutton needs to court the crossbench to form minority government after the election, he would risk putting his Coalition partner offside on climate and environment policy
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If the Coalition wins the election, it will face a concerted push from its junior partner, the Nationals, to weaken and even abandon climate initiatives and promote coal as an interim measure in the Coalition’s nuclear power plan.
That would put Peter Dutton and the Liberals between a rock and a hard place should he seek to form a minority government, given that might require the support of environmentally minded crossbenchers.
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04/02/2025 - 06:00
Experts are desperate to analyse rusty patched bumblebee nests for information that might help save them. But they are extremely hard to find – unless you’re a trained conservation canine
Words and photographs by Anne Readel in Somers, Wisconsin
On a summer day in Somers, Wisconsin, Dave Giordano heard an unexpected buzzing in his back yard. What he found shocked him – a rusty patched bumblebee nest. The discovery was so rare it made the local news.
Once widespread across the midwest and eastern US, the rusty patched bumblebee has seen its population plunge by nearly 90%, prompting its listing in 2017 as the first federally endangered bumblebee in the US.
Main image: Two rusty patched bumblebee gynes in the nest discovered by Dave Giordano in August 2023. Below: Jay Watson, a conservation biologist, observes a nest (marked with orange flags) found in a rodent burrow
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04/02/2025 - 01:55
Wild 5.5 metre swells hammer the eastern NSW coastline, causing damage to key walkways and closing beaches
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Locals in Sydney’s east woke on Wednesday to discover some of the city’s most famous beaches and coastal walkways battered and damaged by huge overnight swells.
Bondi, Bronte, Clovelly and Cronulla beaches were among the areas smashed by 5.5 metre swells.
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