More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found. Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Read more…
What happened during the “Snowball Earth” period is perplexing: Just as the planet endured about 100 million years of deep freeze, with a thick layer of ice covering most of Earth and with low levels of atmospheric oxygen, forms of multicellular life emerged. Why? The prevailing scientific view is that Read more…
Electric vehicles dominated Norway’s new car sales in 2024, capturing 88.9% market share versus 82.4% in 2023, the Norwegian Road Federation said. Tesla led sales, followed by Volkswagen and Toyota, as the Nordic nation approaches its 2025 goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles.
Scientists have discovered that great whales can live well beyond previously estimated lifespans, according to research published in Science Advances. The study found that southern right whales can survive past 130 years, while their heavily hunted northern counterparts rarely live beyond 47 years. The findings support earlier evidence from Arctic Read more…
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered Zhulong, the most distant grand-design spiral galaxy identified so far, located at a redshift of approximately 5.2. The galaxy was named Zhulong, after a giant red solar dragon and god in Chinese mythology. […] Its mass was found to be comparable Read more…
Thursday New York’s governor signed new legislation “to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment” by establishing a Climate Superfund that’s paid for by big fossil-fuel companies. The money will be used for “climate change adaptation,” according to New York state senator Liz Krueger, who notes that Read more…
Three more EU member states — including the most populous, Germany — have joined the list of countries with “ultra-low” fertility rates [non-paywalled source], highlighting the extent of the region’s demographic challenges. Financial Times: Official statistics show Germany’s birth rate fell to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, below the Read more…