Viral videos have shifted public opinion about water monitors, long held in contempt in Thai culture, even as rising numbers of the reptiles pose problems for residents
Shortly after dawn, Lumphini Park comes alive. Bangkok residents descend on the sprawling green oasis in the middle of the city, eager to squeeze in a workout before the heat of the day takes hold. Joggers trot along curving paths. Old men struggle under barbells at the outdoor gym. Spandex-clad women stretch into yoga poses on the grass.
Just metres away, one of the park’s more infamous occupants strikes its own lizard pose. About 400 Asian water monitor lizards call Lumphini Park home, and this morning they are out in full force – scrambling up palm trees, swimming through the waterways and wrestling on the road.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/15/2025 - 01:00
09/15/2025 - 00:00
Agreements include plan to build 12 reactors in Hartlepool with Centrica, creating 2,500 jobs, and fast-tracking UK and US safety checks
Labour’s plans for a massive expansion of nuclear power have been given a boost with a string of transatlantic deals for new modular reactors announced before Donald Trump’s visit.
The UK and US governments have promised to fast track safety checks, and announced several new private sector investment deals, with Labour emphasising the potential benefits for jobs and growth.
Continue reading...
09/15/2025 - 00:00
Report from group of MPs calls for broader access to rivers, woodlands and fields to improve connection with nature
Swimming and wild camping should be a right for all people to enjoy in the English countryside, Labour MPs have said.
They are calling for access to nature to be increased and legal rights to enjoy the countryside in a report from the all-party parliamentary group for outdoor recreation and access to nature.
Continue reading...
09/14/2025 - 19:01
National climate risk assessment report finds heat-related deaths would surge 450% in Sydney if global heating surpasses 3C
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
The climate change minister has mounted the case for the federal government to set a strong 2035 emissions reduction target after releasing a “confronting” report that warned no Australian community would escape the worsening risks of the climate crisis.
Chris Bowen said the “cost of inaction will always outweigh the cost of action” in a message to political and industry voices warning about the economic price of rapid decarbonisation.
Continue reading...
09/14/2025 - 16:55
Follow today’s news live
Millions of Australians at risk from rising sea levels and heat deaths to soar, national climate risk assessment report warns
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Scientists fear this ‘cute’ and ‘chonky’ flying fox could be one cyclone away from extinction
It’s the last native mammal on the island, but the “incredibly cute and fluffy” Christmas Island flying fox is critically endangered with no recovery plan and severely outdated conservation advice.
Continue reading...
09/14/2025 - 13:00
Heroic firefighting and a lucky turn in weather helped avert disaster once, but ‘a perfect storm of conditions’ remains
During a 2024 wildfire season described as “unprecedented”, the tiny central Idaho town of Stanley and nearby Redfish Lake Lodge narrowly missed incineration by two fires: the Bench Lake and then the Wapiti blazes.
It took heroic firefighting efforts and favorable turns in weather conditions for the town – a mountain mecca for tourists from around the world – to survive without the loss of a single life or home.
Continue reading...
09/14/2025 - 10:00
Christmas Island flying fox numbers have declined as endangered species left without recovery plan
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
It’s the last native mammal on the island, but the “incredibly cute and fluffy” Christmas Island flying fox is critically endangered with no recovery plan and severely outdated conservation advice.
The flying fox is smaller and fluffier than many of Australia’s mainland flying fox species, according to animal ecologist Dr Annabel Dorrestein, from Western Sydney University, who has studied the species for nine years.
Continue reading...
09/14/2025 - 06:00
Signs tout a natural paradise, but pollution from over-farming has left Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh choked by toxic algae
The bright, cheery signs dot the shoreline like epistles from another era, a time before the calamity.
“Ballyronan marina is a picturesque boating and tourist facility on the shores of Lough Neagh,” says one. “Contours of its historical past embrace the virginal shoreline.”
Continue reading...
Billion-dollar coffins? New technology could make oceans transparent and Aukus submarines vulnerable
09/13/2025 - 15:00
Quantum sensing, satellite tracking and AI are part of an accelerating arms race in detection that should prompt a re-evaluation of Australia’s defence strategy
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators.
The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power – then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology.
Continue reading...
09/13/2025 - 00:00
As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost
• Photographs by Nicholas JR White
From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.
People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.
The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks
Continue reading...
