Subtle DNA changes in trees demonstrate Charles Darwin’s natural selection – although human help may be needed
New generations of wild ash trees are rapidly evolving resistance to the fungus devastating their numbers, scientists have discovered.
The discovery gives hope, the researchers said, and shows that allowing the natural regeneration of woodlands is vital to enabling this evolution to take place. However, it remains too early to say if the development of resistance in the ash trees can outpace the destruction being caused by the ash dieback fungus.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/26/2025 - 13:00
06/26/2025 - 11:00
Democratic senator leads calls for answers over provision that could cut fossil fuel firms’ income tax to zero
Democratic lawmakers led by the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren are pressing two energy companies about their efforts to “win a $1.1bn tax loophole” in Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”.
The proposed exemption, which Senate Republicans inserted into their version of the reconciliation mega-bill this month, would exempt fossil fuel companies from paying a tax codified by Biden in 2022.
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06/26/2025 - 08:56
Storm naming competition raises idea to remind public of link between fossil fuels and extreme weather
The Met Office should name storms after fossil fuel companies, campaigners have said, after the weather forecasting service opened a storm naming competition.
Climate campaigners have recommended the Met Office names its storms after various oil and gas corporations to remind the public of the link between burning fossil fuels and extreme weather.
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06/26/2025 - 08:43
South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted from the parched north to cooler, greener sites farther south. At first the lizards reacted differently—nervous northerners diving for cover, laid-back southerners basking in damp burrows—but after two years most are settling in, suggesting they can ultimately thrive.
06/26/2025 - 06:00
A subreddit tracking apocalyptic news in a calm, logical way comforts users who believe the end times are now
The threat of nuclear war, genocide in Gaza, ChatGPT reducing human cognitive ability, another summer of record heat. Every day brings a torrent of unimaginable horror. It used to be weeks between disasters, now we’re lucky to get hours.
For many, the only sane solution is to stop reading the news altogether – advice often shared by therapists, self-help books and even newspaper articles.
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06/26/2025 - 03:00
Exclusive: UK Green Building Council calls for adaptation of millions of buildings and warns of flood threats to towns
The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate resilience to be declared a national emergency.
The report by the UK Green Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of flooding.
The appointment of a minister for resilience within the Cabinet Office
A new legal objective to ensure all planning decisions deliver climate safety.
A more ambitious future homes standard to protect against increasing climate hazards – overheating, flooding and water scarcity.
A comprehensive retrofit strategy to make homes and buildings climate safe.
The protection of all communities with trees, parks and ponds.
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06/26/2025 - 01:54
Thousands from Pacific island nation under threat from rising seas enter ballot that awards visas to 280 citizens a year world-first deal
Almost a third of citizens in the Pacific nation of Tuvalu are seeking a landmark visa in the context of climate change to live in Australia as rising seas threaten their palm-fringed shores, official figures show.
Australia is offering visas to 280 Tuvalu citizens each year under a climate migration deal Canberra has billed as “the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world”.
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06/26/2025 - 01:19
The ACCC says it launched investigation into Australian Gas Networks after complaints from consumers and conservation advocates
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Australia’s competition watchdog has launched federal court action against Australian Gas Networks, alleging the company misled consumers with its “Love Gas” campaign.
The advertisements, which ran on free-to-air television, streaming and YouTube during 2022 and 2023, claimed household gas would be “renewable” within a generation.
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06/26/2025 - 01:00
Freighters emit more greenhouse gases than jets, but a tech startup believes a simple and effective technique can help the industry change course
An industrial park alongside the River Lea in the London suburb of Chingford might not be the most obvious place for a quiet revolution to be taking place. But there, a team of entrepreneurs is tinkering with a modest looking steel container that could hold a solution to one of the world’s dirtiest industries.
Inside it are thousands of cherry-sized pellets made from quicklime. At one end, a diesel generator pipes fumes through the lime, which soaks up the carbon, triggering a chemical reaction that transforms it into limestone.
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06/25/2025 - 13:00
Evolutionary change driven by intensive fishing led cod to ‘shrink’ from average 40cm length in 1996 to 20cm in 2019
Overfishing has led to a collapse in the eastern Baltic cod population, but over the past three decades the size of the fish themselves has also been dramatically and mysteriously shrinking.
Now scientists have uncovered genomic evidence that intensive fishing has driven rapid evolutionary changes that have contributed to these fish roughly halving in average body length since the 1990s.
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