Breaking Waves: Ocean News

A research team has discovered two remarkable species of bacteria in the tissue of two deep-sea corals from the Gulf of Mexico. These previously unknown symbionts of the corals have an extremely small genome and can't even produce energy from carbohydrates, the team reports. The bacteria species belong to a new family.

Deputy environment minister calls for urgent action as Riyadh prepares for global summit on issue next month The degradation of the world’s soils and landscapes is threatening human life, and must be addressed as a matter of urgency, the government of Saudi Arabia has said. Neglect of the land is wiping trillions of dollars from global economies, hampering agricultural production, disrupting water supplies, threatening children with poor nutrition, and destroying vital ecosystems, according to the country’s deputy environment minister. Continue reading...

One sucker is precariously attached to some flimsy reality – a wet leaf, a slippery rock – the other one pointed at the future Imagine if your Wikipedia page described you as a “segmented or parasitic worm” with “two head segments” and “suckers at both ends”. You might turn to the Bible, instead – here is the Book of Proverbs on leeches: “The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.” The daughters are the leech’s words (though some interpret the daughters as the suckers): “Give, give.” Within this damp, humid, leech-infested jungle is the surprisingly sweet idea of the words you say as daughters you have given birth to. Continue reading...

Severe flooding is, unfortunately, inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is how ready we are, from early warning systems to emergency services Friederike Otto is a climatologist and co-founder of World Weather Attribution At the time of writing, the death toll has risen to 214. Battered cars and other debris are piled up in the streets, large swaths of Valencia remain underwater, and Spain is in mourning. On Sunday, anger erupted as the king and queen of Spain were pelted with mud and other objects by protesters. Why were so many lives lost in a flood that was well forecasted in a wealthy country? From the global north’s vantage point, the climate crisis, caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has long been seen as a distant threat, affecting poor people in the global south. This misconception has perpetuated a false sense of security. Continue reading...