Colossal Bioscience is adding the extinct animal to its revival wishlist, joining the woolly mammoth, dodo and thylacine. But scepticism is growing
Standing more than three metres (10ft) high, the giant moa is the tallest bird known to have walked on Earth. For thousands of years, the wingless herbivore patrolled New Zealand, feasting on trees and shrubs, until the arrival of humans. Today, records of the enormous animal survive only in Māori oral histories, as well as thousands of discoveries of bone, mummified flesh and the odd feather.
But this week, the US start-up Colossal Biosciences has announced that the giant moa has joined the woolly mammoth, dodo and thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, on its list of animals that it is trying to bring back from the dead. The announcement has provoked public excitement – and deep scepticism from many experts about whether it is possible to resurrect the bird, which disappeared a century after the arrival of early Polynesian settlers in New Zealand about 600 years ago.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/10/2025 - 23:00
07/10/2025 - 19:17
I love a sale – but scrolling the list of Amazon’s deals is overwhelming to the point of delirium
I’m a simple girl. My idea of fun is an annual event in which people are crushed in pursuit of half-price Christmas decorations. But those days have passed. Welcome to the era of the always-on sale.
If you’re into capitalist nightmares, you might like EOFY sales, Oh No We Forgot EOFY sales, SOFY sales, Father’s Day sales, AFL grand final sales, and “my boss doesn’t want me to send this email” sales. Then we go headlong into Australia’s Black Friday sales, which start around the beginning of November and last until January, as is tradition (though not ours).
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07/10/2025 - 13:36
The imperative ought to be to bear down on costs for consumers, starting with a more pragmatic approach to generation targets
The chief executive of Ofgem, Jonathan Brearley, backed zonal pricing. Fintan Slye, the head of the National Energy System Operator, also supported a system that could have led to different parts of Great Britain charging different rates for their electricity. Chris Stark, the head of the “mission control” unit within Ed Miliband’s energy department, declared himself to be “zonal curious”.
But it’s not going to happen. After intense lobbying from both sides of the great philosophical divide in energy-land, Miliband has killed the zonal option. The policy wonks are now obliged to go back to fiddling with internal network charges – the fees paid by generators to access the transmission network – to calculate the sweet spots to encourage more renewable generation where it’s most needed, while not stifling it completely in places where, for example, it is windy. That means yet more rounds of consultation.
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07/10/2025 - 13:00
Worst-case scenario of 4.3C of warming could result in fiftyfold rise in heat-related deaths, researchers say
More than 30,000 people a year in England and Wales could die from heat-related causes by the 2070s, scientists have warned.
A new study calculates that heat mortality could rise more than fiftyfold in 50 years because of climate heating. Researchers at UCL and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine compared different potential scenarios, looking at levels of warming, measures to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, regional climatic differences and potential power outages. They also modelled the ageing population.
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07/10/2025 - 10:00
Ecologist says the native fish is important for ecosystems as they are a food source for bigger fish and birds such as pelicans, cormorants and gulls
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Residents from the New South Wales central west town of Lake Cargelligo first started to notice fish dying in their local lake two weeks ago.
Since then, officials have estimated thousands of bony herring, a native Australian fish, have perished. They suspect a drop in water temperature at the lake has triggered what is known as “winter die off”.
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07/10/2025 - 10:00
President raised $239m for inauguration – more than previous three inaugural committees took in combined
The fossil fuel industry poured more than $19m into Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accounting for nearly 8% of all donations it raised, a new analysis shows, raising concerns about White House’s relationship with big oil.
The president raised a stunning $239m for his inauguration – more than the previous three inaugural committees took in combined and more than double the previous record – according to data published by the US Federal Election Commission (FEC). The oil and gas sector made a significant contribution to that overall number, found the international environmental and human rights organization Global Witness.
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07/10/2025 - 09:04
Campaigners say Ofwat ‘subservient to industry and its rampaging pursuit of profit’ after illegal sewage discharges
South West Water has agreed to pay a £24m penalty for illegal sewage discharges into the environment from its treatment works.
The regulator for the water and wastewater sector in England and Wales, Ofwat, says the company, which has 1.8 million customers in Cornwall, Devon, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Dorset and Somerset, is being penalised for dumping sewage in breach of its legal permit conditions.
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07/10/2025 - 08:00
Scottish Water boss says average Scot uses 40% more water than people in Yorkshire partly due to mistaken belief water is abundant in Scotland
Scottish households are being urged to cut back heavily on their water use and instead treat it as a precious resource due to the growing threat to supplies from climate heating.
Alex Plant, the chief executive of Scottish Water, said the average Scot used 40% more water than consumers in Yorkshire, partly because there was a widespread but mistaken assumption that water was abundant in Scotland.
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07/10/2025 - 08:00
Guardian makes legally mandated gold standard report widely available after administration deleted website
The future of the US government’s premier climate crisis report is perilously uncertain after the Trump administration deleted the website that housed the periodic, legally mandated assessments that have been produced by scientists over the past two decades.
Five national climate assessments have been compiled since 2000 by researchers across a dozen US government agencies and outside scientists, providing a gold standard report to city and state officials, as well as the general public, of global heating and its impacts upon human health, agriculture, water supplies, air pollution and other aspects of American life.
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07/10/2025 - 07:47
Terms like ‘deglobalisation’ have become commonplace, but what we need is true multilateralism. Erecting walls won’t bring us peace and prosperity
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil
The year 2025 should be a time of celebration, marking eight decades of the United Nations’ existence. But it risks going down in history as the year when the international order built since 1945 collapsed.
The cracks had long been visible. Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the intervention in Libya and the war in Ukraine, some permanent members of the security council have trivialised the illegal use of force. The failure to act vis-a-vis the genocide in Gaza represents a denial of the most basic values of humanity. The inability to overcome differences is fuelling a new escalation of violence in the Middle East, the latest chapter of which includes the attack on Iran.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil
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