Breaking Waves: Ocean News

The country’s biggest tree – named Heaven Sword of the Da’an River – is a carbon-storing behemoth hosting whole neighbourhoods of wildlife. But this and other giant trees are under threat The higher you climb up the gigantic, millennia-old trees of Taiwan’s forests, the more layers of habitat and life emerge. On the forest floor, ferns thrive in the moist shade. Flying squirrels and owls sleep inside the hollow tree trunks. Yellow bell-shaped rhododendron flowers spring from the lower tree canopy. Higher still, dense lichen spread. Up in cloud-drenched branches, a rare, hardy orchid, Bulbophyllum ciliisepalum, can be spotted. “In one tree, every species has their preferred location,” says Dr Rebecca Hsu, assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. “Every metre the temperature, the wind, the sun, the light is different.” Continue reading...

People in southern Wales and area of England from Kent and Sussex to Somerset and Birmingham urged to protect themselves from extreme heat The UK’s Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity. It covers southern Wales as far west as Swansea, and an area of England that includes London and runs from the inland areas of Kent and Sussex, all the way across to Somerset, as far north-west as Birmingham, and as far north-east as southern Cambridgeshire. Continue reading...

A national heatwave plan has been activated to help people stay cool during the Netherlands’ increasingly hot summers Households in Amsterdam are being urged to hang their curtains outside their windows as health experts recommend simple hacks to moderate the heatwave rolling across the Netherlands, where homes were built for old-fashioned damp and coldish northern European weather. In a viral social media post last week, Eline Coolen, the heat coordinator at the city’s public health institute, urged sweaty city-dwellers to rig up temporary curtain rails or drape curtains or sheets outside to stop the sun’s rays reaching their large windows. Continue reading...

Poultry producer Ingham’s announces move, as a brown skua and a giant petrel the first confirmed H5 cases on Australia’s mainland Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Poultry farms in Western Australia have gone into lockdown after the deadly H5N1 bird flu arrived on the country’s mainland, with tests confirming a second bird also carried the disease. On Monday, the Ingham’s Group – Australia’s largest poultry producer – announced a “complete lockdown” in WA, despite no commercial detection of H5N1. Continue reading...