The Guardian

The government is providing $237m to projects it says will benefit threatened species – yet there is little chance the species actually occur at those sites

• ‘A national disgrace’: Australia’s extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight
  

The Polly Woodside, a three-masted historic cargo ship built in 1885, is a prominent feature of Melbourne’s south wharf. It’s a site for tour groups, birthday parties, and an event known as pirate day held on the first Sunday of every month.

According to the federal government, the vessel has also been the location for some of its $255m worth of work protecting threatened species since the appointment of Australia’s first threatened species commissioner in 2014.

Research shows drones can deliver certain items faster and with less environmental impact than trucks – but there are drawbacks

Drones invoke varying perceptions, from fun gadget to fly in the park to deadly military weapons. In the future, they may even be viewed as a handy tool in the battle to fight climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport of goods could be cut if drones replace trucks in some instances, researchers have found, providing an environmental edge to the push by companies such as Amazon and Google to expand drone deliveries.

The crossing, unassisted by an icebreaker vessel, marks a milestone as thawing polar ice opens up Russia’s northern coastline, reports Climate Home News

An LNG tanker designed for icy conditions has become the first commercial ship to travel the Arctic’s northern sea route in winter.

It marks a milestone in the opening up of Russia’s northern coastline, as thawing polar ice makes industrial development and maritime trade increasingly viable.

Research shows that pace of melting in Antarctica and Greenland has accelerated

Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite data shows.

At the current rate, the world’s oceans will be on average at least 60cm (2ft) higher by the end of the century, according to research published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

A heartwarming image of a gorilla in the arms of her rescuer won this year’s award, after 20,000 nature fans voted on a shortlist of 24 images

• The picture will be displayed in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum until 28 May
  

Readers around the UK have been getting in touch after noticing blooming and blossoming ahead of time

Spring has come early in the form of blooming flowers and butterflies, according to readers around the UK who responded to our callout.

Related: Spring flowers in autumn, birdsong in winter: what a freak year for nature

Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex: This is no idle flyover – the peregrine falcon is focused, intent, trying to single out possible targets

Government says it has no information on extent of clearing under new, less-restrictive laws

Prosecutions in New South Wales for illegal land clearing have dropped by 80% in the past three years, according to data released under freedom of information laws.

The information, obtained by the NSW Labor opposition, shows the Berejiklian government claims not to have any information about how much clearing has occurred under new laws that came into force in August 2017 aimed at making land clearing easier.

Company pledges to introduce free drinking water facilities in many of nation’s busiest stations

Network Rail has pledged to install water fountains in the majority of its 17 managed UK stations by the end of the year.

Related: Bottled water is a nonsense. Just ban it and fill our towns with drinking fountains | Sonia Sodha

Hundreds of Australian animals are endangered, and while they could be saved, government intervention is urgently needed
• ‘A national disgrace’: Australia’s extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight

More than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities are at risk of extinction right now
• Interactive: Wombats, sharks, possums, frogs: Australia’s animals at risk of extinction

Global warming wiped out the Bramble Cay melomys – the first mammalian extinction in the world to be caused by climate change – but a straightforward plan that could have rescued the little rodent was thwarted by red tape and political indifference.

“It could have been saved. That’s the most important part,” says John Woinarski, a professor of conservation biology who was on the threatened species scientific committee that approved a 2008 national recovery plan for the species, endemic to a tiny island in the Torres Strait.

Until Pruitt deleted the EPA climate webpages.

Last week, a Las Vegas news station interviewed Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The interviewer brought up the topic of climate change, and virtually everything Pruitt said in response was wrong, and was often refuted on his own agency’s website, until he started deleting it.

First data ever gathered from extremely remote area of the South Indian Ocean has a surprisingly high volume of plastic particles, say scientists

Microplastics have been found in some of the most remote and uncharted regions of the oceans raising more concerns over the global scale of plastic pollution.

Samples taken from the middle of the South Indian Ocean – at latitude 45.5 degrees south – show microplastic particles detected at relatively high volumes. Sören Gutekunst, from the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, who analysed the samples, said the data showed 42 particles per cubic metre, which was surprising given the remoteness of the area.

15 February 1918 The ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front

Yesterday morning, and to a lesser extent this morning, worms were unusually active; the influence of spring had penetrated underground and sent them to the surface to feel rather than see the improved conditions. They crawled in thousands over the footpaths; they were crushed and mutilated in hundreds beneath the feet of passers-by; the ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front. These extensive peregrinations must have begun at an early hour.

Related: From the archive, 19 May 1984: Here's hoping the Guinness worm will turn

South Devon: Outside this field the nearest colony of these heathland ants is in the Scottish Highlands

A soggy mound amid the grass stopped me in my tracks. I had spent the best part of an hour searching the heathland reserve, eyes to the ground, before I chanced across it close to a clump of gorse. It was nothing much to look at, admittedly. After a winter of heavy downpours the dome-shaped structure covered with tiny snippets of vegetation had slumped so that it resembled a spadeful of old lawn clippings. Yet beneath the bedraggled thatch was buried treasure: an exceptionally rare colony of narrow-headed ants (Formica exsecta) toughing out the colder months hidden from view.

Shaped like tiny lopsided dumbbells, these territorial ants, named for the distinctive notch in the back of their head, play an important role in maintaining heathland through their foraging behaviour. Colonies can contain several queens along with about 1,000 workers, each armed with strong mandibles and capable of engaging in chemical warfare by firing jets of formic acid from their rear to deter predators.

Everyday hubbub can increase your chance of cardiovascular problems, new research claims. Here are four ways to mitigate the effects of background sounds

If you find it vexing that a loud bang can trigger a heart attack, bad news: it turns out a low rumble can, too. Several studies have identified links between noise pollution from railways, airports or roads and cardiovascular conditions such as high blood pressure, stroke and heart failure. According to new research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, this is probably because sound can cause a spike in stress hormones, which damages the heart over time.

The researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany who compiled the research said one of the main ways noise pollution affects heart health is by disrupting sleep. Thankfully, there are simple way to mitigating those effects.

The Danish capital ranks high on the list of the world’s healthiest and happiest cities. With obesity and depression on the rise worldwide, here are its lessons for how to combat them culturally

Maybe it’s the Viking heritage. There is an icy open-air pool in the waters of Copenhagen’s harbour, and although it is mid-winter Danes still jump in every day. On the front cover of the city’s health plan, a lean older man is pictured climbing out, dripping, his mouth open in a shout that could be horror or pleasure. “Enjoy life, Copenhageners,” urges the caption.

It’s not every Copenhagener who wants to take strenuous exercise in cold water either for fun or to get fit. But the packed bike lanes of the Danish capital, even at this sometimes subzero time of year, are testimony to the success of a city that is aspiring to be one of the healthiest in the world. Copenhagen consistently sits at the very top of the UN’s happiness index and is one of the star performers in the Healthy Cities initiative of the World Health Organisation, which, almost unknown and unsung, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The initiative was the idea of a group of individuals inspired by the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, which was about elevating the status of primary care and public health in a world where everybody equated healthcare with hospital treatment after you got ill.

Rock singer Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with snake venom for 30 years. In a strange twist, his bizarre habit could now save thousands of lives. His former partner Britt Collins tells his outlandish story

Sometime in 2006, when my ex-boyfriend failed to show up for dinner, I assumed something was wrong or perhaps he’d forgotten. About a week later, calling to apologise, he told me he’d had an overdose, accidentally injecting a lethal cocktail of venom from three snakes. A lot has been written about Steve Ludwin, widely known as the man who injects snake venom, and lately his life has turned into a non-stop frenzy of international journalists and film crews revelling in the seeming sheer insanity of it.

Steve was once my great love; an animal lover, vegan and musician who wrote songs for Placebo and Ash, and played the Reading festival with Nirvana. In between tours and recordings he dabbled with snake venom. In his latest incarnation as a self-taught snake expert, moulding himself into the role of a lifetime, he appears as a kind of living specimen and star in a short film at the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition, Venom: Killer and Cure.

Tanya Plibersek rejects Jeyakumar Janakaraj’s claim Bill Shorten casting doubt on future foreign investment

Labor has rejected claims it is destabilising Australia’s ability to attract investment through its growing scepticism of the controversial Adani Queensland coalmine.

Following moves by Labor to distance itself from Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine, the Adani Australia chief executive, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, told the Weekend Australian that Labor’s attacks on the project had cast doubt on Australia’s ability to remain an attractive destination for capital.

But the deputy opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, said none of Labor’s criticism should harm Australia as an investment destination.

Photographer Joshua Smith’s latest project, The Reef, is an aerial exploration of his experience with Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Smith’s hope is to raise awareness of Australia’s connection with the reef and the impact humans have on it. The series is the the fifth instalment of Down Under from Above, a captivating film and aerial photo series sharing unique perspectives of Australian landscape while highlighting the importance of preservation