Sharks: one in four habitats in remote open ocean threatened by longline fishing

Jul 28, 2019 11:09 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Unlike the many species which stalk the shallow, coastal waters that fisheries exploit all year round, pelagic sharks roam the vast open oceans. These are the long-distance travellers of the submarine world and include the...

2,000 years of records show it's getting hotter, faster

Jul 28, 2019 11:08 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

New reconstructions of Earths temperature over the past 2,000 years, published today in Nature Geoscience, highlight the astonishing rate of the recent widespread warming of our planet. We also now have a clearer...

Heatwave: think it's hot in Europe? The human body is already close to thermal limits elsewhere

Jul 26, 2019 09:01 am UTC| Nature

I am a scientist who researches climate hazards. This week I have published research on the potential for a catastrophic cyclone-heatwave combo in the global south. Yet over the past few days I have been approached by...

Shark Week looms, but don't panic

Jul 26, 2019 08:51 am UTC| Nature

Sharks elicit outsized fear, even though the risk of a shark bite is infinitesimally small. As a marine biologist and director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, I oversee the International Shark Attack File a...

Our cities need more trees, but some commonly planted ones won't survive climate change

Jul 26, 2019 08:45 am UTC| Nature

We need trees in our lives. This past summer, Adelaide experienced the hottest temperature ever recorded in an Australian state capital, hitting 46.6 degrees on January 24. Trees beautify otherwise grey cities and cool our...

Extreme weather caused by climate change has damaged 45% of Australia's coastal habitat

Jul 26, 2019 08:45 am UTC| Nature

If you think climate change is only gradually affecting our natural systems, think again. Our research, published yesterday in Frontiers in Marine Science, looked at the large-scale impacts of a series of extreme...

Cigarette butts are the forgotten plastic pollution – and they could be killing our plants

Jul 22, 2019 13:33 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Its amazing how quickly people have ditched plastic straws thanks to campaigns to discourage us from using such pointless plastic. Yet rarely do we hear about a much more common source of plastic pollution. Cigarette...