Breaking Waves: Ocean News

2025 was among driest years on record for world’s rivers, study finds

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:00:40 +0000

Analysis of global resources reveals depletion in world’s water savings bank to 42% below normal levels last year

Rivers across the world experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in 2025, a comprehensive study of global water resources has found.

‘Like a Disney movie’: Three wild dog brothers make Africa’s longest journey

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:00:39 +0000

As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs’ perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territory

It sounds like a Disney movie: three wild dogs, all brothers, on an epic journey to find a home of their own after their family tells them to leave. They dodge cars and hunters in search of a new life, navigating bushmeat snares and the hostility of a human-dominated landscape until they find a new haven on the African savannah.

English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:00:39 +0000

Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder bee

It sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of bread and cheese.

But the conservation charity English Heritage is recruiting a team of volunteer scythers to maintain 21st-century meadowland in the old-fashioned way.

Do whales grieve? Rare footage of humpback alongside stillborn calf suggests they might | Olaf Meynecke for the Conversation

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 02:22:11 +0000

The behaviours we observed could represent grief, but they could also reflect maternal attachment, confusion or instinctive caregiving

It was a tragic sight.

One day last July, a newborn humpback whale calf lay motionless on the seafloor, just a kilometre off Australia’s Gold Coast. The encounter was captured through underwater video.

Climate crisis likely behind devastating Nepal-Tibet floods that killed more than 1,300, first study finds

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 23:01:32 +0000

Scientists say global heating was a destabilising factor in collapse of 200,000 sq metre glacier in August

Climate breakdown probably weakened the glacier that collapsed causing catastrophic floods and killing hundreds of people in Nepal and Tibet last month, the first scientific study of the disaster has found.

Trump EPA’s arguments for letting power plants spew unlimited pollution ‘dead wrong’

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:00:20 +0000

Claims that dismantling pollution rules will lower energy bills and have little climate impact are far from convincing

In allowing US power plants to emit any amount of planet-heating pollution they wish to, the Trump administration made two striking claims – that this will cut Americans’ electricity bills and that the pollution itself doesn’t really matter anyway. Both claims struggle to stand up to even basic scrutiny.

Microplastics in soil pose global threat by acting like ‘Trojan horse’ to deliver toxins

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:00:19 +0000

Exclusive: Plastic surfaces form hotspots with an increase of antibiotic-resistant genes, study finds

Microplastics act like a “Trojan horse” delivering pollutants, pesticides and bacteria through the soil, a five-year multinational research project has found.

Datacenter rush will create ‘tsunami’ of discarded electronics, report says

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 11:00:19 +0000

Global push will triple toxic e-waste annually in 25 years, filling enough shipping containers to circle globe six times

The ongoing campaign to build thousands of massive datacenters for AI will create a “tsunami” of discarded electronics, putting the world on a course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste in the next 25 years, a new report projects.

‘We’re near a breaking point:’ firefighters say US government is failing them amid intense wildfire season

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:00:16 +0000

US grapples with federal firefighter shortage as crews say they’re spread thin and lack resources during unrelenting year of fire

Firefighters battling enormous wildfires in the United States say the federal government is failing them at a time when supercharged blazes have made their jobs exponentially more dangerous.

Company behind failed Surrey oilfield project sells site at massive loss

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:00:15 +0000

New owners apply for permission to extract oil in Horse Hill despite landmark ruling from supreme court in 2024

After years of trying to dig for oil in Surrey, the company behind the drilling project that was turned down in a landmark supreme court ruling has sold off the site for a fraction of the money it spent on it, and rebranded as a clean energy company.

Meanwhile, the new owners, who picked up the site for £1m, are applying, once again, for permission to dig.