After record losses last year, beekeepers report a warm winter has led to bees ‘waking up earlier’ this year
After a series of record-breaking US heatwaves, the 2026 bee swarm season in North America has started 17 days earlier than last year, pushing beekeepers to adapt to a rapidly shifting season while raising new questions about how honeybees are responding to the climate crisis.
According to a new report published by Swarmed, a tracking network of more than 10,000 beekeepers, focused on safe and ethical honeybee relocation, this year’s unusually early swarm season follows several years of record colony declines worldwide.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/17/2026 - 07:00
05/17/2026 - 05:00
The 2022 World Cup failed to deliver on its environmental promises. From air travel emissions to heat-related dangers, the 2026 edition will be even worse
Soccer fans are increasingly watching preparations for the 2026 World Cup through their fingers. The most popular sporting event on the planet is awash in controversy, whether it’s the eye-watering ticket prices, the question of Iran’s participation while the president of one of the host countries threatens war crimes against it, or the role that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement may or may not play in policing the event. And yet, lost in the political pyrotechnics is a fiasco that carries as much long-term peril as any: the tournament’s staggering contribution to runaway climate change.
The 2026 World Cup is not only the most politically combustible tournament in modern history, but it is also on track to be the “most polluting” World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average. Scientists conservatively project that the tournament will generate around 9m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel comprises approximately 7.7m tons of this carbon budget, and more than four times that of the average for tournaments held between 2010 and 2022. The researchers note that the worst-case upper estimate for air transport is about 13.7m tons of CO2. That may sound bad, but that’s just because World Cup emissions have never been worse.
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05/17/2026 - 03:00
Despite the ban on disposables, waste professionals say the mountain of discarded devices is a £1bn-a-year issue
It is 2pm and Ana, 47, has just started the afternoon shift at the Suez recycling plant near Birmingham city centre, standing beneath a sign reading “Non-ferrous sorting station” with a bucket of vapes in front of her. Sorting and dismantling them is part of her job as a site operative.
Recycling them is not simple. Each bucket holds between 40 and 50 devices, and over the course of a shift, she gets through about half a bucket. Using a hammer, she has to smash each vape open, pry out the batteries and separate each component into a different container.
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05/17/2026 - 01:00
Eden Project founder wants to inspire councils to build community gardens so young people can grow vegetables
Local councils should “rip up asphalt” to build community gardens so young people can grow vegetables, a co-founder of the Eden Project has said.
Tim Smit, who opened the giant biomes in Cornwall in 2000, has designed an “edimental” garden for the Chelsea flower show with the landscape designers Harry Holding and Alex Michaelis. The concept behind it is that plants such as cabbages and strawberries are beautiful but edible and should be placed alongside traditional bedding plants.
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05/13/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 14 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00203-3
Navigating towards resilient relationships with kelp
05/13/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 14 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00201-5
From little things, big things grow: using applied nucleation to restore marine forests
05/11/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00200-6
Deep differences: expanding the marine social sciences and humanities into the deep ocean
05/10/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 11 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00202-4
Offshore wind farms reshape ocean stratification and productivity differently in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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