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Climate crisis and overfishing contributed to loss of 95% of penguins in two breeding colonies in South Africa, research finds
More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.
More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.
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‘Soilsmology’ aims to map world’s soils and help avert famine, says not-for-profit co-founded by George Monbiot
A groundbreaking soil-health measuring technique could help avert famine and drought, scientists have said.
At the moment, scientists have to dig lots of holes to study the soil, which is time-consuming and damages its structure, making the sampling less accurate.
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I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program
It felt like walking up a mountain during a temperature inversion. You struggle through fog so dense you can scarcely see where you’re going. Suddenly, you break through the top of the cloud, and the world is laid out before you. It was that rare and remarkable thing: a eureka moment.
For the past three years, I’d been struggling with a big and frustrating problem. In researching my book Regenesis, I’d been working closely with Iain Tolhurst (Tolly), a pioneering farmer who had pulled off something extraordinary. Almost everywhere, high-yield farming means major environmental harm, due to the amount of fertiliser, pesticides and (sometimes) irrigation water and deep ploughing required. Most farms with apparently small environmental impacts produce low yields. This, in reality, means high impacts, as more land is needed to produce a given amount of food. But Tolly has found the holy grail of agriculture: high and rising yields with minimal environmental harm.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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Conservationists say changes, coupled with underfunding, will curb take-up and leave less land protected for nature
An ambitious scheme to restore England’s nature over coming decades has been undermined after the government inserted a clause allowing it to terminate contracts with only a year’s notice, conservationists have said.
The project was designed to fund landscape-scale restoration over thousands of hectares, whether on large estates or across farms and nature reserves. The idea was to create huge reserves for rare species to thrive – projects promoted as decades-long commitments to securing habitat for wildlife well into the future.
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RSPB says growing trend for honouring species that are in decline is not matched by action on conservation
Britain’s street names are being inspired by skylarks, lapwings and starlings, even as bird populations decline.
According to a report by the RSPB, names such as Skylark Lane and Swift Avenue are increasingly common. Using OS Open Names data from 2004 to 2024, the conservation charity found that road names featuring bird species had risen by 350% for skylarks, 156% for starlings and 104% for lapwings, despite populations of these having fallen in the wild.
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In this week’s newsletter: Coroners can’t agree on how to count heat fatalities – and the dismantling of climate investments is leaving fragile communities exposed
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Donald Trump’s decision to boycott Cop30, withdraw the US from the Paris agreement and illegally terminate a slew of investments in renewable energy will not change the reality of climate breakdown for Americans.
In what has become an annual reporting tradition, I found myself in Arizona reporting on heat-related deaths during yet another gruelling heatwave, when temperatures topped 43C (110F) on 13 out of 14 straight days in Phoenix. Before embarking on this trip, I spent weeks combing through hundreds of autopsy reports, which I obtained from two county medical examiners using the Freedom of Information Act. Each death report gave me a glimpse into the person’s life, and I used clues from the case notes to track down friends and loved ones in the hopes of better understanding why heat is killing people in the richest country in the world.
How cyclones and monsoon rains converged to devastate parts of Asia – visual guide
The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?
‘Those who eat Chilean salmon cannot imagine how much human blood it carries with it’
Americans are dying from extreme heat. Autopsy reports don’t show the full story
‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival
‘It happened so fast’: the shocking reality of indoor heat deaths in Arizona
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Australian eco community is a sanctuary for native animals and a showcase of sustainable living
Bill Smart has never heard the word “solarpunk”. But the softly spoken 77-year-old lights up when given the definition from Wikipedia: a literary, artistic and social movement that envisions and works towards actualising a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community.
Solar refers not just to renewable energy but to an optimistic, anti-dystopian vision of the future. Punk is an allusion to its countercultural, do-it-yourself ethic.
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Designer Michael Schmidt’s 36-piece collection was made from the wool of rams who have shown same-sex attraction
When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath – what is known in the world of animal husbandry as a “flehmen response” – it is often a sign of arousal. Sheep have a small sensory organ located above the roof of the mouth, and the flehmen response helps to flood it with any sex pheromones wafting about.
Usually, rams flehmen when they encounter ewes during the mating period, according to Michael Stücke, a farmer with 30 years of experience raising sheep in Westphalia, Germany. But on Stücke’s farm, the rams flehmen “all the time”.
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Plans that evolved over more than two decades are about to become reality as a 6km cycling, walking and nature corridor opens through Sydney’s inner west
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About 25 years ago, Bruce Ashley was walking beside the Hawthorne canal in Sydney’s inner west when he stopped to chat with two men planting native species next to the footpath.
Ashley, an environmental planning consultant, had been thinking about how to link paths and scraps of bush to create a “greenway” along the old goods line from Pyrmont to Dulwich Hill since the mid-1990s, when the state government had commissioned him to examine the potential for cycle rail trails throughout New South Wales.
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Using an already existing artificial tree until its bedraggled end will be more environmentally friendly than buying a felled pine every year, but the answer isn’t clearcut
Change by Degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint
Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com
While it might be difficult to imagine the yuletide without one, Christmas trees are a relatively recent phenomenon: decorating trees only began in the mid-18th century.
But what began as a quaint, sustainable custom has since morphed into a display of merriment that isn’t without consequence.
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Upala pluća može izazvati srčane komplikacije poput zatajenja srca, aritmija ili srčanog udara koje uzrokuju smrt. Sada su američki znanstvenici identificirali bakterijski enzim nazvan zmpB, koji bi mogao biti razlog zašto neki ljudi dobiju srčane komplikacije s upalom pluća, dok drugi ne.
Žene koje prijavljuju visoku razinu psihosocijalnog stresa, poput stresa uzrokovanog brigom i nedostatkom emocionalne podrške, pokazuju znakove ranih promjena srčanog tkiva povezanih s kardiovaskularnim bolestima – povezanost koja nije uočena kod muškaraca, otkriva nova studija.
Dugotrajna izloženost uobičajenim onečišćujućim tvarima zraka povezana je s uznapredovalijom koronarnom bolešću srca, pokazuje studija provedena na više od 11.000 odraslih osoba.
Prema rezultatima novog istraživanja, suzbijanje uobičajenog dječjeg virusa moglo bi otvoriti vrata sprječavanju raka mokraćnog mjehura. Naime, studija sugerira da BK poliomavirus (BKPyV) koji većina ljudi pokupi u djetinjstvu može izazvati vrstu oštećenja DNK koja može dovesti do raka mokraćnog mjehura kasnije u životu.
Osobe s oštećenom funkcijom bubrega imaju više razine biomarkera za Alzheimerovu bolest u krvi, ali ne i povećan rizik od demencije, tvrdi nova studija. Iako nije otkriveno da smanjena funkcija bubrega povećava rizik od razvoja demencije, otkriveno je da oštećena funkcija bubrega može ubrzati pojavu demencije kod ljudi koji imaju više razine biomarkera.
Rizik od iznenadne srčane smrti veći je i za osobe s dijabetesom tipa 1 i dijabetesom tipa 2, pokazuje nova studije. Povećanje rizika posebno je uočljivo među mlađim odraslim osobama. Iznenadna srčana smrt je kada netko iznenada i neočekivano umre zbog problema sa srcem. Općenito je rijetka kod mladih i naizgled zdravih osoba.
Mikrobi u našem tijelu ne samo da pomažu u razgradnji hrane, već utječu i na naše zdravlje. Ipak, njihov točan utjecaj nije uvijek shvaćen, posebno u prisutnosti lijekova.. Sada nova studija izvještava kako jedna od najzastupljenijih crijevnih bakterija, Bacteroides dorei, reagira na tetracikline, klasu često propisivanih antibiotika.
Rak dojke može modificirati limfne žile kroz koje putuje do drenažnih limfnih čvorova te se odatle može proširiti na druge dijelove tijela, pokazuje nova studija. Smatra se, da bi ovo otkriće moglo pomoći u razvoju ciljanih terapija koje bi mogle spriječiti ovo širenje.
Američki znanstvenici s Columbia University otkrili su da nedostatak željeza u prehrani u ranoj dobi može spriječiti imunološke stanice u plućima da proizvode ključni protein koji pomaže u borbi protiv virusnih infekcija, čak i nakon što se razina željeza obnovi.
Poremećaji prehrane kod budućih majki povezani su s povećanim rizikom od astme kod njihove djece, bez obzira na vrstu poremećaja, prisutnost istodobne depresije/anksioznosti ili vrijeme izloženosti djeteta, otkriva novo istraživanje.
