The Guardian

Dr Joanne Chory hopes that genetic modifications to enhance plants’ natural carbon-fixing traits could play a key role – but knows that time is short, for her and the planet

If this were a film about humanity’s last hope before climate change wiped us out, Hollywood would be accused of flagrant typecasting. That’s because Dr Joanne Chory is too perfect for the role to be believable.

The esteemed scientist – who has long banged the climate drum and now leads a project that could lower the Earth’s temperature – is perhaps the world’s leading botanist and is on the cusp of something so big that it could truly change our planet.

As bird is found with large amounts of lead in its body, a biologist asks ‘Is Yellowstone as protected as we once thought?’

The pioneering golden eagle took to the skies above Yellowstone national park in the fall and flew north, to areas where humans were hunting game. A few months later it returned to the park and was found on the ground, dead.

Scientists performing a necropsy on the creature, the first to be tagged with a radio transmitter in the park, made an unhappy discovery: it had been poisoned by lead. They are now raising concerns over whether US national parks are as safe for wildlife as they seem.

Disruption in capital by Extinction Rebellion demonstrators continues into second day

Police have arrested more than 100 environmental protesters as the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations that brought chaos to central London enters their second day.

Thousands of people blocked four well-known landmarks on Monday – Waterloo Bridge, Marble Arch, Parliament Square and Oxford Circus – to demand urgent action over the escalating climate crisis.

Scientists study species that releases huge quantities of bodily fluids to plug nest holes

While humans might change their locks to deal with intruders, a species of aphid opts for a communal sacrifice, releasing huge quantities of a sticky bodily fluid to plug holes in their nests.

Researchers who studied the makeup of the fluid found the process for nest repair was similar to what happens when aphids are wounded, involving the release of substances that clot and form a scab. This means similar mechanisms underpin both individual immunity and so-called social immunity – when organisms work together to protect their communities from enemies and disease.

In the warmer months of the year the inland lake in Melbourne’s Westgate Park turns pink owing to high salt levels, sunlight and a lack of rainfall. But it’s not the only body of water in Australia to change hue. Here are some of the rose-coloured lakes across the country

• Digging for a delicacy: hand harvesting pink salt in the Wimmera

Study finds even supposedly pristine region of the Pyrenees is polluted, but impact on human health remains unknown

Microplastic is raining down on even remote mountaintops, a new study has revealed, with winds having the capacity to carry the pollution “anywhere and everywhere”.

The scientists were astounded by the quantities of microplastic falling from the sky in a supposedly pristine place such as the French stretch of the Pyrenees mountains. Researchers are now finding microplastics everywhere they look; in rivers, the deepest oceans and soils around the world.

Extinction Rebellion mobilise activists across London, calling for decisive action on climate change

• Thousands join Extinction Rebellion protest in London

Death of Yangtze giant softshell turtle came a day after artificial insemination attempt

The world’s rarest turtle has moved closer to extinction after a female died in a Chinese zoo, leaving just three known members of the species.

The Yangtze giant softshell turtle, believed to be more than 90 years old, died in Suzhou zoo on Saturday, according to the Suzhou Daily.

Climate group calling for peaceful acts of civil disobedience across capital

• Tell us if you are taking part

Thousands of people are expected to take the streets of London on Monday, blocking traffic and causing widespread disruption, to demand action over the escalating ecological crisis.

Hundreds of protesters slept in tents in Hyde Park overnight and many more from around the UK are expected to join them at five makeshift camps across the capital for the protest, which is expected to last at least a week.

Not a single leatherback nested at the Chacocente reserve this year as the species faces threats of poaching and warming seas

Every year, from November through March, leatherback sea turtles arrive to the secluded shores of the Río Escalante Chacocente wildlife reserve on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast to lay their eggs.

Though leatherback nesting habits vary, Chacocente has been a reliable egg-laying site for as long as conservationists have collected nesting data.

David Buckel hoped his death would catalyze action. But what is individual responsibility when confronted with the crisis of a rapidly changing planet?

• Warning: graphic content

On a recent Saturday in Brooklyn, against the unlikely backdrop of a huge blue-and-white Ikea outlet, several dozen volunteers hand-churned compost. Decomposing food scraps emit considerable heat, and the 6ft-tall compost heaps were warm to the touch. As shovels and pitchforks pierced the compost, gusts of steam rolled off like fog.

A three-acre lot-turned-urban farm, the Red Hook Community Farms contains the largest compost site in America powered entirely by sustainable sources. During an orientation for new volunteers, one of the site managers explained that the operation was the brainchild of a lawyer-turned-environmentalist named David Buckel, who supervised it until his death last year. He designed the site’s processes so it would run like clockwork, even in his absence.

Botanists, including a descendant of Charles Darwin, are researching the birds’ preference for Berlin

They were once among Britain’s most beloved singers, their “murmurs musical” giving melancholy poets solace in their darkest hours. But these days the world-famous warblers are more likely to be found jamming with jazz musicians in neglected Berlin parks than serenading Londoners in Berkeley Square. Some even claim that their latest outpourings feature elements of German techno.

Luscinia megarhynchos, the common nightingale, has been shunning the UK since the 1960s, during which time the population has slumped by 90%. The number of birds in Berlin, however, is on the rise. According to cautious estimates by the city senate, the German capital’s nightingale population grew by 6% every year from 2006 to 2016: “a very high rate”, said Johannes Schwarz, a species conservation officer, who puts the current number of nesting pairs at between 1,300 and 1,700.

• Researchers herald sightings of two more mother and calf pairs
• Population of rare whale species is only around 411

Endangered North Atlantic right whales are experiencing a mini baby boom in waters off New England, researchers on Cape Cod have said.

Related: No North Atlantic right whales killed in Canadian waters in 2018

About 2,300 climate activists have already signed up to help obstruct busy roads next week

Environmental campaigners are hoping to mobilise thousands of people to block the streets of central London around the clock next week, in their latest attempt to raise public awareness and provoke action over the destruction of the biosphere.

About 2,300 volunteers have signed up with Extinction Rebellion to obstruct some of the capital’s busiest roads for at least three days.

The last one was built 50 years ago – so what is driving a resurgence in interest in our much loved ocean baths?

Australia’s ocean pools inspire a kind of fervour that borders on the fanatical. Writer Benjamin Law described taking a swim in Sydney’s ocean pools as a “spiritual experience”. Plenty of others agree, frequenting sea baths daily, their dedication etched on to their skin over decades by the sun’s rays. The pools are a must-see for tourists and source of contention for locals, who spar over their favourites.

Yet 50 years have passed since the last one was built – councils have been preferring chlorinated pool complexes instead. But now it appears there may be a shift back. The towns of Ballina and Port Macquarie on New South Wales’ north coast are looking at constructing tidal pools, as is Hallett Cove in South Australia. Mosman Park in Perth is also conducting a feasibility study after progress stalled on a pool at nearby Cottesloe.

The best banners and placards from Friday’s student climate change protests across the world

Frogs’ legs, a bee on cowslips and a brown bear with its cub

Scientists say stream dubbed ‘most polluted in Europe’ is reminder of effects of intensive farming

Winding between green meadows in the west Flanders countryside, the Wulfdambeek stream is fondly remembered as a place local boys would fill up their water bottles before football games.

But research from the University of Exeter has offered a sharp reminder of how intensive farming methods are changing the face of the northern European countryside in ways scientists claim are not being properly understood.

Young people demand action from politicians at synchronised rallies across Britain

Thousands of students and activists have taken to the streets of more than 50 British towns and cities demanding urgent action on climate change for the third time in as many months.

The organisers of the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement said “sizeable events” took place in London, Sheffield, Manchester and Brighton, among other towns and cities. They mirrored events around the world, as protesters from cities as far apart as Helsinki and Delhi took to the streets.

Restoration of unnamed tributary of River Chew offers new habitat for rare wildlife

A lost river has returned to the Somerset countryside for the first time in 70 years, and with it a new habitat for several species of rare and threatened wildlife.

The unnamed tributary of the River Chew from the Mendip Hills down to the River Avon was severed by a dam in 1956, when the valley was flooded to form the Chew Valley Lake reservoir that supplies Bristol and Bath.