World’s Oldest Bird Gives Birth to Yet Another Chick–at Nearly 74 Years Old

Wisdom – USFWS / SWNSThe world’s oldest known bird has returned to her home island to hatch yet another chick, at nearly 74 years old.Named Wisdom, the Laysan albatross has been spotted this month caring for her youngster on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean.Like others of her species, Wisdom returns to the same nesting site each year to reunite with her mate and if able, lay one egg.For decades, park officials in the Hawaiian Archipelago observed Wisdom doing this with the same partner (named Akeakamai), but that bird has not been seen for several years, which caused Wisdom to begin courtship dances with other males last year.The spry septuagenarian is estimated to have produced 50-60 eggs in her lifetime, successfully fledging as many as 30 chicks, according to the expert staff at the refuge 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu.Albatross parents share the responsibility of feeding their young by taking turns hunting while the other stays at the nest to watch over the chick.“So when Wisdom returns to the nest (it’s) her partner’s turn to go hunt for squid, fish and crustaceans,” said a statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service–Pacific Region.Biologists first identified and banded Wisdom in 1956 after she laid an egg. They determined her estimated age from that event 69 years ago, because the large...

Read More........→March 08, 2025

Countries Are Breathing the Cleanest Air in Centuries and Offer Lessons to the Rest of Us

An article at Our World in Data recently explored trends in air quality across a selection of high and middle-income countries, and found that not only is the West breathing better air than at perhaps any point since urbanization, but that developing nations likely won’t need 100 years or more to arrive at similar outcomes.Published by Hannah Ritchie, the article focuses on two kinds of gases emitted from industrial activity: sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx). Both enter the air we breathe from the burning of fossil fuels—coal in particular—while the latter is emitted mostly from internal combustion engines.Bad air quality is responsible for millions of lost life years worldwide from respiratory problems, cardiovascular issues, and neurological disease—all of which can develop and become exasperated under prolonged exposure to air pollutants.UK sulphur dioxide emissions – credit Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) 2024, CC BY license.As seen in this chart, emissions of SO2 have just dipped under levels seen at the earliest periods of British industrialization. Before this, city and town air quality would have been badly tainted through emissions of wood smoke, so it’s safe to assume that 2022 marked the best British air in many centuries, not just the last two.SO2 enters the ambient air primarily in urban environments...

Read More........→March 06, 2025

First major chunk breaks off world's biggest iceberg

PARIS - An enormous chunk has broken off the world's largest iceberg, in a possible first sign the behemoth from Antarctica could be crumbling.The colossal iceberg -- which is more than twice the size of Greater London and weighs nearly one trillion tonnes -- had largely stayed intact since it started slowly moving north in 2020.It has been drifting toward the remote island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, raising the prospect it could run aground in shallower water and disrupt feeding for baby penguins and seals.But a chunk about 19 kilometres (12 miles) long has cleaved off, said Andrew Meijers from the British Antarctic Survey, who encountered the iceberg in late 2023 and has tracked its fate via satellite ever since."This is definitely the first significant clear slice of the iceberg that's appeared," the physical oceanographer told AFP.Soledad Tiranti, a glaciologist currently on an Argentinian exploration voyage in the Antarctic, also told AFP that a section had "broken" away.The jagged piece has an area of roughly 80 square kilometres (31 square miles) -- huge in its own right, but just a fraction of the approximately 3360 square kilometres that remained.Meijers said icebergs were full of deep fractures, and although this monumental specimen had shrunk over time and lost a much smaller piece, it had "held together...

Read More........→February 06, 2025

Giant Millipede Lost to Science for a Century Rediscovered in Madagascar with 20 More Species in World-First Expedition

Spirostreptus sculptus (Photo by Dmitry Telnov/NHM London, UK)It may be the very definition of a creepy crawly, but this species of giant millipede was a major discovery for a recent scientific expedition to Madagascar.Not seen in 126 years, it was part of a bevy of species identified by scientists among the trees and waterfalls in a remote section of the largest forest on the island, called Makira.The expedition was part of Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species program, on the progress of which GNN has reported substantially over the last four years. It included teams of scientists and conservationists from 4 different organizations, as well as local guides.Different specialized team members were searching for mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates that have not had a documented sighting in at least a decade or more, but are not assessed as extinct by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The full team, which numbered more than 30 people, searched Makira for several weeks in September 2023 and spent several months analyzing their results.“In the past the Search for Lost Species has primarily looked for one or two species on each expedition, but there are now 4,300 species that we know of around the world that have not been documented in a decade or more,” said Christina Biggs, lost species officer for Re:wild,...

Read More........→December 30, 2024

‘Unseen world’: researchers capture fascinating footage of the world’s smallest penguins in a bid to save them

Diane Colombelli-Négrel, Flinders UniversityOn Granite Island off South Australia, a colony of little penguins is fighting to survive. About two decades ago, the penguins numbered 1,600 adults – now there are just 30. It is important for scientists to monitor and study this little penguin colony, to observe their behaviours and stop their numbers from declining. In our latest research project, my colleagues and I captured footage of the penguins over several breeding seasons, as part of a study into their parenting behaviours. It provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the unseen world of these vulnerable birds. So let’s take a look at what Granite Island’s little penguins get up to when humans aren’t watching. Granite Island’s colony of little penguins is fighting to survive. ShutterstockThe world’s tiniest penguin Little penguins (Eudyptula novaehollandiae) are the world’s smallest penguin species. They typically grow to about 35 centimetres and weigh an average 1.2 kilograms. They live in coastal waters in Tasmania and southern Australia – including on Granite Island, about 100 kilometres south of Adelaide. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway, and draws up to 800,000 visitors a year. The stark decline in little penguin numbers on Granite Island is due to several factors. They include...

Read More........→December 24, 2024

World's oldest known wild bird is expecting again, aged 74

LOS ANGELES - Parenting can be tough, even for the young and energetic, but one elderly albatross is about to go through it all again -- at the ripe old (and apparently record-setting) age of 74.Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross, is one of millions of the huge seabirds that return to Midway Atoll, near Hawaii, every year to nest.Wildlife experts say for decades she was doing this with the same partner -- the birds are known to be monogamous -- and has laid over 50 eggs in her lifetime.But her partner has not been seen for years, and Wisdom has recently begun to flirt with other males.On this year's visit, she has produced an egg that her new partner is helping her to incubate."We are optimistic that the egg will hatch," said Jonathan Plissner, supervisory wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.Photographs and video provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service show the proud parents-to-be apparently chattering to their egg before the male sits on it.Wisdom was identified and tagged when she laid her first egg at the refuge in 1956, when she would have been at least five years old -- the point Laysan Albatrosses reach sexual maturity.That means by the end of the month, Wisdom will be at least 74 years old, and could be several years beyond that, making her the oldest known wild bird in the world.Laysan Albatrosses can...

Read More........→December 13, 2024

New Zealand scientists dissect world's rarest whale

WELLINGTON - New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale considered the rarest in the world, a species so elusive that only seven specimens have ever been documented.The dead spade-toothed whale washed ashore on New Zealand's South Island earlier this year, offering a chance to study a deep-sea mammal that has never been seen alive.Measuring five metres long, the whale was winched off the beach in July and has sat in a special freezer since.Whale expert Anton van Helden said it was the first time scientists had been able to dissect a complete spade-toothed specimen, which belongs to the family of beaked whales."This is a remarkable and globally significant opportunity," he said.The week-long dissection will help to fill in gaps about the whale's behaviour, its diet, and even its basic anatomy."Beaked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet," said Van Helden."They are deep divers that are rarely seen at sea, which presents real challenges for researching these marine animals."This one is the rarest of the rare - only the seventh specimen known from anywhere in the world, and the first opportunity we have had to undertake a dissection like this."New Zealand's conservation department said the spade-toothed whale was the "rarest whale in the world".The species was first described in 1874 from...

Read More........→December 11, 2024

World’s Largest Genome Discovered in a Tiny Fern: ‘Breaks all records’

A group of small fork ferns – credit Pol Fernandez, released via iScienceOn the island of New Caledonia, a simple, unassuming species of fern has been identified as having the longest genome of any living organism known.It is 50 times longer than a human’s, 7% longer than the previous world record-holding species for longest genome, and 20% longer than the record-holding animal.Compared to 23 pairs of chromosomes in every human cell, the tiny fern contains 416—and if unraveled, would climb higher than Big Ben in London’s Westminster.Questions abound, as does admiration for the majesty and mysteries of biological life.“Compared to other organisms, plants are incredibly diverse when viewed at the DNA level, and that should make us pause to think about their intrinsic value in the wider picture of global biodiversity,” said Dr. Ilia Leitch, Senior Research Leader at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.“This discovery also raises many new and exciting questions about the upper limits of what is biologically possible, and we hope to solve these mysteries one day.”Tmesipteris oblanceolata is a species of New Caledonian fork fern that grows on the ground or out of rotting tree trunks. A team from Kew and the Institut Botànic de Barcelona traveled to New Caledoina’s largest island of Grand Terre to collect this species for study.20,000 species...

Read More........→December 09, 2024

India’s CO2 emissions account 8pc of global total, to rise by 4.6pc in 2024: Report

New Delhi, (IANS): India accounts for per cent of the global total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and it is expected to increase by 4.6 per cent in 2024, according to a new report released on Wednesday, ahead of the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.The report by Global Carbon Project, involving an international team of more than 120 scientists, showed that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024 -- 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024, up 0.8 per cent from 2023 levels.The report led by the University of Exeter showed “there is ‘no sign’ that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions”. This is despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow climate change.It showed that emissions from coal are expected to rise by 0.2 per cent; oil by 0.9 per cent; and gas by 2.4 per cent.China’s emissions -- which account for 32 per cent of the global total -- are projected to marginally increase by 0.2 per cent, while US emissions (which account for 13 per cent of the global total) are projected to decrease by 0.6 per cent.Notably, emissions from the European Union (accounting for 7 per cent of the global total) will decrease by 3.8 per cent.Emissions in the rest of the world (accounting for 38 per cent of the global total) are projected to increase by 1.1 per cent, said the report, published in...

Read More........→December 02, 2024

Scientists Discover ‘World’s Largest’ Coral –the Size of 5 Tennis Courts

Courtesy of Manu San Félix / National Geographic Pristine Seas (cropped)On an expedition to the Solomon Islands, divers affiliated with National Geographic have found the world’s largest single coral colony ever recorded.It’s longer than the largest blue whale. At 34 meters (111 feet) in length, and with a width of 32 (105) meters, it could sit corner to corner across 5 tennis courts.Experts believe it has been growing for between 300 and 500 years.The mammoth coral was discovered by scientists from National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Initiative, which aims to gather scientific data to inform conservation measures in places where marine life is bountiful. During an expedition to the Three Sisters island group in the Makira-Ulawa Province of Solomon Islands, they thought at first its massive shadow under the water was a shipwreck.“At a time where we can observe every square inch of the land with satellites and drones, the ocean below the surface continues to hold mysteries like this one,” said National Geographic explorer in residence Enric Sala. “It was like finding the world’s tallest tree.”Sala hopes the coral and its presentation—agonizingly short of being able to feature at the sixteenth annual conference of the parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, (COP16)—will nevertheless help spur future marine protection by demonstrating...

Read More........→November 28, 2024

Climate change a challenge for our global food systems: WHO

New Delhi, (IANS) Climate change is a challenge for the global food system, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, at the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday.In a video message to the second Global Food Regulators Summit in Delhi, the WHO chief highlighted the important role of national food regulators in harmonising regulatory policies for the world.In addition to climate change, “population growth, new technologies, globalisation, and industrialisation" are other increasing challenges to the global food systems, Ghebreyesus said.Further, he said food regulators also play a critical role in combating unsafe food, which causes 600 million cases of foodborne diseases and 4,20,000 deaths annually.He also lamented that 70 per cent of fatalities from unsafe food occur among children under five."The food regulator community has a critical role to play in addressing these global challenges," Ghebreyesus said.Meanwhile, stressing the need for innovative regulatory solutions, Dr Samuel Godefroy, President, the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) stated that food science is vital for human survival.He also applauded FSSAI for its contribution to strengthening the global food regulatory network.Steve Wearne, Chairperson, Codex appreciated India’s significant investment in Codex and food safety...

Read More........→September 24, 2024

World will likely temporarily pass 1.5C climate limit by 2028: UN

BRUSSELS - Humanity now faces an 80 percent chance that Earth's temperatures will at least temporarily exceed the key 1.5-degree Celsius mark during the next five years, the UN predicted Wednesday.The 2015 Paris climate accords, which set the ambitious target of limiting the world to a temperature increase of 1.5 C over pre-industrial levels, meant to refer "to long-term temperature increases over decades, not over one to five years", the UN's World Meteorological Organization said.The report came alongside another by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service announcing that last month was the hottest May on record, pointing to human-induced climate change -- and spurring UN chief Antonio Guterres to compare humanity's impact on the world to "the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs".The chance of temporarily exceeding the limit in the next five years ahead has been rising steadily since 2015, when such a chance was estimated to be close to zero, the UN's weather and climate agency noted."There is an 80 percent likelihood that the annual average global temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years," WMO said.In 2023, the risk of temporarily breaching the limit within five years was estimated at 66 percent.Already, dramatic climate shifts have begun taking a heavy toll...

Read More........→July 04, 2024

Antarctica is missing a chunk of sea ice bigger than Greenland – what’s going on?

Ella Gilbert, British Antarctic Survey and Caroline Holmes, The Open UniversityDeadly heatwaves, raging wildfires and record global temperatures are upon us. But far from the flames, at the southernmost tip of the planet, something just as shocking is unfolding. It’s Antarctic winter, a time when the area of floating sea ice around the continent should be rapidly expanding. This year though, the freeze-up has been happening in slow motion. After reaching a record low minimum extent this summer there is now an area of open ocean bigger than Greenland. If the “missing” sea ice were a country, it’d be the tenth largest in the world.  Antarctic sea ice extent in 2023 compared to the 1981-2010 average. Zachary LabeWho cares about Antarctic sea ice? In the face of more immediate climate concerns, why does Antarctic sea ice matter? Floating sea ice is a pivotal climate puzzle piece. Without it, global temperatures would be warmer because its bright, white surface acts like a mirror, reflecting the sun’s energy back to space. This keeps the Antarctic – and by extension, the planet – cool. Antarctic sea ice also plays a particularly important role in controlling ocean currents and may act as a buffer that protects floating ice shelves and glaciers from collapsing and adding to global sea levels. In short, the loss of Antarctic...

Read More........→May 22, 2024

China starts mass production of carbon-14 isotope

The Qinshan plant (Image: CNNC)The carbon-14 isotope is being produced at the Qinshan nuclear power plant, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has announced.According to CNNC the development means that the country can fully meet its demand for carbon-14, which is used in medical and scientific research and in fields including agriculture and chemistry as well as in medicine and biology. Radiocarbon dating uses carbon-14 to determine the true age of ancient objects up to 50,000 years old.Apart from very limited production in experimental reactors, it was previously imported, with CNNC saying it was "expensive and supply could not be guaranteed - the shortage of supply has seriously restricted development of downstream industries". The irradiated carbon-14 target was successfully extracted from the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant's heavy water reactor unit at 13:48 on Saturday 20 April.Shang Xianhe, general manager of Qinshan Nuclear Power, told reporters: "This is the first time China has achieved mass production of carbon-14 isotopes in a commercial nuclear power reactor. From now on, it is expected that we can produce about 150 curies of carbon-14 isotopes every year, which can fully meet China's market demand."The carbon-14 targets will be supplied to the market at the end of 2024 after being separated and purified, CNNC said....

Read More........→May 16, 2024

In World First, Scientists Share What Was Almost Certainly a Conversation with a Humpback Whale

Photo by Christopher Michel, CC licenseIn a world first, marine biologists were able to have a discourse with a humpback whale, pushing out the boundaries of cooperation and understanding that could be possible between our two species.An adult female humpback whale, known as Twain, in Southeast Alaska, was located along with a group of whales and called with a recording of another humpback’s “whup/throp” call.The recording was made by whales of the same group the day before, but the team didn’t know if the calls recorded were made by the same whale or were part of an exchange between two or more whales. To find out, the researchers conducted the trial on two days, with the first to find out if the whup calls they had recorded would be socially acceptable.It turned out that whatever the whale(s) had been saying the day before was appropriate as far as Twain was concerned, and after the team broadcast the playback, she drifted away from her group and participated both physically and acoustically in three phases of interaction with the crew and their boat including periods of engagement, agitation, and disengagement.First she called back, then she circled the boat three times, surfaced, and dived again. After this interaction, she gradually left.Twain’s whup calls on day 2 and the whup calls recorded on day 1 were acoustically analyzed...

Read More........→April 16, 2024

Children Do Much Better in Math When Music is Added to the Lesson: New Study

Photos by Crissy Jarvis (left) and Ben MullinsA new study explored the causal role that music engagement has on student achievement in mathematics—and they found a significant benefit. Researchers believe that music can make math more enjoyable, keep students engaged, and help ease their fear or anxiety about topics like fractions. The addition of music may even motivate kids to appreciate math and want to learn more. A typical technique for integrating music into math lessons for young children involves clapping to songs with different rhythms learning numbers, and equating fractions to musical notes. The new meta-analysis published in the journal Educational Studies analyzed 55 studies from around the world, involving almost 78,000 students, from kindergarten to university age. Three types of musical interventions were included: typical music lessons in which children sing, listen to, and learn about composing music; learning how to play instruments alone or as part of a band; and music-math integrated interventions, where music was integrated into math lessons. Students took math tests before and after taking part in the intervention, and the change in their scores was compared with those who didn’t take part in any intervention. The use of music—whether in separate lessons or as part of math classes—caused a greater improvement...

Read More........→April 16, 2024

The world is quietly losing the land it needs to feed itself

A drought-affected corn field in the town of Serodino, Santa Fe province, Argentina, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. MUST CREDIT: Sebastian Lopez Brach/BloombergThe greatest threats to our existence today are caused by human activity rather than nature acting alone, according to a recent United Nations report.Many people are familiar with human contribution to climate change and perhaps also the loss of biodiversity. But there’s a third environmental impact that rarely gets the attention it deserves: desertification, also known as land degradation.The world is rapidly losing usable land for self-inflicted reasons, ranging from intensive agriculture and overgrazing of livestock to real estate development and, yes, climate change. The crisis is further fueling food and water insecurity, as well as adding to more greenhouse gas emissions.Environmental scientists haven’t ignored the problem. In fact, the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 led to the creation of three UN conventions: climate change, biodiversity and desertification.The climate convention holds big COP summits each year – such as COP28 in Dubai – that now frequently make front-page headlines.But while the biodiversity and desertification conventions also hold COP summits, they’re only once every two years and rarely get that much interest. It’s a lost opportunity,...

Read More........→February 28, 2024

We are poised to pass 1.5℃ of global warming – world leaders offer 4 ways to manage this dangerous time

Marcus E Jones, Shutterstock Jonathan Symons, Macquarie UniversityFor three decades, the goal of international climate negotiations has been to avoid “dangerous” warming above 1.5℃. With warming to date standing at around 1.2℃, we haven’t quite reached the zone we labelled dangerous and pledged to avoid.But recent scientific assessments suggest we’re on the brink of passing that milestone. Within this decade, global annual temperatures will likely exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average for at least one year. This threshold was already briefly passed for the month of July 2023 during the Northern summer. The question is, how do we manage this period of “overshoot” and bring temperatures back down? The goal will be to restore a more habitable climate, as fast as possible. Today an independent group of global leaders released a major report. The Climate Overshoot Commission offers guidance at this crucial time. So far the report’s call for an immediate moratorium on “solar radiation management” (deflecting the sun’s rays to reduce warming) has attracted the most attention. But the details of other recommendations deserve closer inspection.  How can we respond to climate overshoot? Historically, climate policies have focused on mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions). More recently, adaptation has gained...

Read More........→September 18, 2023