Around The Web

A new protein discovery by a team of Dutch and South African researchers could help develop new smart solar technologies.

Study finds birds have design templates in their minds and may pass them on to future generations

New Caledonian crows use mental pictures to twist twigs into hooks and make other tools, according to a provocative study that suggests the notoriously clever birds pass on successful designs to future generations, a hallmark of culture.

“We find evidence for a specific type of emulation we call mental template matching,” co-author Alex Taylor, director of the Language, Cognition and Culture Lab at the University of Auckland, told AFP.

Continue reading...

AEMO data shows some surprising results on the replacement of Hazelwood, and what happened to wholesale electricity prices.

Jaguar's pursuit of changing the image of "the old man's car" cars to a leading edge innovator in electric vehicles leads to a new speed record, on water.

From biologically dead to a haven for wildlife. How the Thames Estuary has become a sanctuary for seals.

The Thames was once heavily polluted but seals are back and population surveys are helping guard against threats from disease and dredging.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

US markets were mostly quiet this week as traders looked ahead to the July 4 holiday next Wednesday, though RGGI allowances saw their highest volumes of the year transacted at the end of last week.

Washington state campaigners will submit enough signatures to the Secretary of State’s office on Monday to put a CO2 tax on the state’s November ballot, raising hope that voters can overcome years of unsuccessful attempts to put a price on carbon in the US state.

We can safely say goodbye to most single-use plastics. But they do have essential uses in some areas, such as for medical or scientific samples, or storing food for humanitarian aid. Paul Harvey, Researcher of Environmental Science, Macquarie University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Watch how Emma the crow creates the currency required to operate a vending machine.

EU carbon prices fell back to €15 on Thursday, fading in the final hour to stall the recovery in EUAs built up over the past week or so.

The US will clearly miss its Paris Agreement GHG targets even if market forces benefit clean energy and planned federal environmental rollbacks do not move forward, according to a new study published on Thursday.

Experts warn it may take years for the wildlife to fully return to the burnt area near Saddleworth Moor.

Dr. Cristiana Pașca Palmer has a big job ahead of her: planning the 2020 UN Biodiversity Convention in Beijing. As the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Pașca Palmer is in charge of forming new goals with governments for the natural world post-2020. At the same time, a growing group of scientists are calling for a serious consideration of the Half Earth idea – where half the planet would be placed under various types of protection in a bid to prevent mass extinction.

Do you support the Half Earth model? What tweaks would you make to it?

Continue reading...

Conservation scientists believe our current mass extinction crisis requires a far more ambitious agreement, in the style of the Paris Climate Accord. And they argue that the bill shouldn’t be handed just to nation states, but corporations too.

Let’s be honest, the global community’s response to the rising evidence of mass extinction and ecological degradation has been largely to throw crumbs at it. Where we have acted it’s been in a mostly haphazard and modest way — a protected area here, a conservation program there, a few new laws, and a pinch of funding. The problem is such actions — while laudable and important — in no way match the scope and size of the problem where all markers indicate that life on Earth continues to slide into the dustbin.

But a few scientists are beginning to call for more ambition — much more — and they want to see it enshrined in a new global agreement similar to the Paris Climate Accord. They also say that the bill shouldn’t just fall on nations, but the private sector too.

Continue reading...

US-based private fund Climate Trust Capital (CTC) teamed with green group The Nature Conservancy to close its largest carbon credit deal for an improved forest management project in Maine.

Oil spill disaster reduced biodiversity in sites closest to spill, report finds, as White House rolls back conservation measures

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may have had a lasting impact upon even the smallest organisms in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have found – amid warnings that the oceans around America are also under fresh assault as a result of environmental policies under Donald Trump.

Lingering oil residues have altered the basic building blocks of life in the ocean by reducing biodiversity in sites closest to the spill, which occurred when a BP drilling rig exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing about 4m barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Continue reading...

Plants share resources using an underground network called the "Wood Wide Web".

In this extract from Rising, Elizabeth Rush explains ‘sunny day flooding’ – when a high tide can cause streets to fill with water

• Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’

I spend the afternoon in Shorecrest, a neighborhood a couple of miles north of downtown Miami. To get there I leave the beach behind and drive past Arky’s Live Bait & Tackle, Deal and Discounts II, Rafiul Food Store, Royal Budget Inn, Family Dollar and Goodwill. As I continue north, the buildings all lose their mirrored glass and their extra floors, until most are single story and made from stucco.

Related: Flooding from sea level rise threatens over 300,000 US coastal homes – study

Continue reading...