Reducing plastic bags not enough

From shocking footage of an albatross chick killed by a plastic toothpick to images of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and recent coverage of the increase in litter left behind by visitors to the British countryside during the pandemic, there is no shortage of evidence of the harm and ugliness caused by plastic – reports The Guardian ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/04/the-guardian-view-on-plastics-reducing-bag-use-is-not-enough?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco ) Public awareness of the problem has grown rapidly over recent years in many countries, and led to new legislation. But while environmental organisations work hard...

STEM : ‘wet’ student’s appetite!

Your students might grab a glass of water to drink, turn the tap on to brush their teeth, take a shower at night, and fill their dog’s water bowl—all without even thinking about water quality. As an educator, you want to teach them about where their water comes from and why it’s important to keep natural water sources (such as rivers, lakes, and oceans) clean. Pollution can take many forms, and it’s often hard to know how clean a water...

We are at a cross roads – Attenborough

MORE than 60 years after he first graced our TV screens, Sir David Attenborough’s passion for the natural world is greater than ever. The national treasure is a man on a mission. Now 94, our best-known naturalist believes the planet CAN be saved from global warming — and without us giving up life’s pleasures. Those famous bright-blue eyes glint like a schoolboy’s as Sir Daviddiscusses what we can do to tackle the looming ­climate crisis. Arms outstretched on the table, he...

Breathtaking natural images

Now in its fifty-sixth year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) competition and exhibition showcases the beautiful wildlife of the Earth by talented photographers across the world. This year’s competition attracted almost 49,000 entries from professionals and amateurs across 86 countries. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London (NHM). The competition was originally founded in 1965 by BBC Wildlife Magazine, then called Animals. The NHM joined forces in 1984 to create the competition as...

Invasive species threat to World Heritage

A new paper indicates that impacts on natural World Heritage sites from invasive alien species, such as house mice, Argentine ants and rainbow trout, may be greater than previously assessed. It presents results of a proposed framework tested in seven affected sites, recording the presence of more invasive alien species in almost all cases. The authors, a team of international scientists including from IUCN, call for improved monitoring and reporting as a first step towards more effective protection. Natural World...

It’s mind-blowing!

Astronomers have detected the most powerful, most distant and most perplexing collision of black holes yet using gravitational waves. Of the two behemoths that fused when the Universe was half its current age, at least one — weighing 85 times as much as the Sun — has a mass that was thought to be too large to be involved in such an event. And the merger produced a black hole of nearly 150 solar masses, the researchers have estimated, putting...

‘Lost’ elephant shrew found

A sengi species ‘lost’ for half a century has been rediscovered in a surprising location A small mammal that has not been by scientists seen the late 1960s has been found, and in a new country. ( source and full article- https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/a-sengi-species-lost-for-half-a-century-has-been-rediscovered-in-a-surprising-location/ ) Sengis, also known as elephant-shrews, are a group of small insectivorous mammals. The Somali sengi had not been seen in the wild there for half a century, and was considered lost to science. It was known from...

Moving a city to save it!

The Radical Plan to Save the Fastest Sinking City in the World Many of our coastal cities are imperiled, but none have plotted an escape quite as audacious as Jakarta’s I. The capital of catastrophe In the 17th and 18th centuries, European workers flocked by the thousands to a faraway colonial Dutch port later to be known as Jakarta. The lure of the tough, six-month ocean journey was easy enough to see: seemingly limitless island forests of clove and nutmeg, spices...

Pandemic threatens rare monkeys

National Geographic reports that – The rampant spread of COVID-19 across Brazil is threatening more than half a century of conservation efforts to protect a small, bright orange monkey called the golden lion tamarin. Named for their leonine manes and found only in Brazil, golden lion tamarins had shrunk in number to a mere 200 in the 1970s, because of their capture for the pet trade and the destruction and fragmentation of their Atlantic Forest habitat. A series of efforts—ranging...

COVID-19 impact on the animal kingdom

While the human tally of COVID-19 cases has risen, animal cases have remained novelties. As of this moment, you can count the affected species on one hand: lions, tigers, domestic cats, dogs, mink. The pets contracted the virus from their owners; the big cats, likely from an asymptomatic caregiver; and the mink, likely from fur farm workers or possibly other infected animals.Beyond that conclusion is a sea of unknowns. There’s no evidence that domesticated animals can pass the virus to humans, but there’s...