The Guardian

Campaigners welcome ‘seismic shift’ and urge museum bosses to review links with other fossil fuel sponsors

The Science Museum has been forced to cut ties with oil giant Equinor over its sponsor’s environmental record, the Observer can reveal.

Equinor has sponsored the museum’s interactive “WonderLab” since 2016, but the relationship is now coming to close, a move that will be seen as a major victory for climate change campaigners.

This isn’t down to one wet, cold British spring but a disturbing longer-term decline in insects. Thankfully, we can help

Anyone with even a passing interest in the natural world will have noticed a dramatic phenomenon this year: a lack of insects. Perhaps most noticeable is the near-absence of butterflies. Species that are usually common, such as large and small whites, small tortoiseshells, gatekeepers, ringlets, peacocks and meadow browns, are in many places down to the point of having almost disappeared. This is certainly the case where I live, in Cambridge.

Bee populations seem to be down here, too, with flowery margins that would at this time of year normally be alive with pollinators now eerily quiet. Hoverflies are depleted, moths scarce and aphids have either appeared very late or not at all. Buddleia bushes, with their fragrant mauve flowers that are usually festooned with butterflies, moths and many other insects, sit naked of their normal visitors.

Southern Water says it wants to protect rare chalk streams, but campaigners say it could pollute the Solent

A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”.

Southern Water wants to treat effluent – wastewater from the sewage system – at a plant at Havant in Hampshire and pipe it into a nearby spring-fed reservoir to boost water supplies during droughts. The scheme would ensure less water is extracted from two rare chalk streams: the Rivers Test and Itchen.

Scientists fear adaptations to global heating may leave some species struggling to mate successfully

An ambush bug with a darker-coloured body is better at snagging a sexual partner than its brighter counterpart when it is chilly. Darker males can warm up more easily in the early mornings, and therefore get busy while everybody else is still warming up.

This is one of the many examples of how temperature affects colouring in insects, and in turn can affect their ability to mate, according to a new review article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail was officially extinct until March 2020, when a local citizen scientist found it on the remote Norfolk Island. 40 of the thumbnail-sized snails were taken to a dedicated and quarantined captive breeding facility in Taronga zoo. 40 baby snails were born in the last fortnight, after initially struggling to reproduce in captivity

• Lion brothers make record-breaking 1.5km swim in hope of finding mates - video

Donations grew dramatically after Australia’s black summer but animal carers say they didn’t receive enough

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Australia’s largest wildlife rescue organisation faces a landmark vote on Sunday, as members unhappy with the distribution of donations after the black summer bushfires attempt to change its constitution.

The income of the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (Wires), based in NSW, ballooned from $3m to more than $100m thanks to the success of its fundraising campaign after the catastrophic fires of 2019-20, which burned millions of hectares of land and reportedly killed or displaced 3 billion animals.

Four animals released in Wallington estate in Northumberland last year have transformed the landscape

The first beavers in Northumberland for more than 400 years have been stupendously busy. There are new dam systems, as well as canals and burrows, new wildlife-rich wetlands and, thrillingly, a baby beaver.

Whether it is male or female remains to be seen. “Beavers don’t have external genitalia,” said Heather Devey, an expert. “They are really hard to sex. It’s really only through their anal glands that you can tell.”

Low yields combined with low prices for some crops also led to a 13% drop in farm output compared with 2022

Income from farming in England plummeted by 19% last year after floods meant harvesting many crops was impossible.

Farmers have called for more support from the government as the climate breaks down, meaning agricultural businesses are no longer able to count on mild UK weather and increasingly face drought and floods.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

With up to 80% of butterflies in decline, people are being asked to spend 15 minutes to record number and type witnessed

Scientists are calling on the public to help track how British butterflies are moving north as the climate heats up.

Examining 50 years of data, researchers from the wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation, which runs the annual Big Butterfly Count, have identified a clear northerly shift among many species, including the familiar garden favourites the comma, peacock and holly blue.

Researchers estimate 730,000 people a year in the US lose their ability to live independently due to traffic pollution

Reducing air pollution may help elderly people to live independent lives for longer, research has found.

Dr Boya Zhang, of the University of Michigan, who is one of the authors of the study, said: “Air pollution is linked to worse health – more lung disease, more heart disease, shorter life expectancies and more likelihood of dementia. Knowing that air pollution increases our risk of poor health as we age made us wonder if exposures might also impact how people can care for themselves in later life.”

Australian scientists create brick refuges in greenhouses to help green and golden bell frogs survive infection

A “sauna” treatment for frogs has been used by researchers in Australia to successfully fight a deadly fungal disease that has devastated amphibians around the world, according to a new study.

Scientists created refuges for the animals using painted masonry bricks inside greenhouses that they called “frog saunas”. They found that endangered Australian green and golden bell frogs were able to clear infections from the deadly Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus, in the warmer conditions of the greenhouses, when they would otherwise have died. Many of the frogs that recovered in the refuges were then resistant to infection.

Snail mail replaced with slug mail as scientists need 1,000 grey field slugs to explore their impact on various crops

It may be known as snail mail, but researchers are hoping the public will use the postal service to send them a different kind of mollusc: slugs.

A team of scientists and farmers carrying out research into slug-resistant wheat say they need about 1,000 of the creatures to explore how palatable slugs find various crops.

Rescuers including vets rush to save 12 survivors from 77-strong group lying on Sanday shore

Dozens of long-finned pilot whales have died after a 77-strong pod came ashore on an Orkney beach in what could be the biggest mass stranding in decades.

Twelve of the animals at Tresness beach, on the island of Sanday, were still alive, but according to rescuers from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), it was thought unlikely they could be saved.

Lawyers acting for minister say emissions of coal extracted from mine should have been taken into account

The government has admitted that a proposed coalmine in Cumbria was approved unlawfully, as the carbon emissions of coal from the mine should have been taken into account in the planning decision.

This follows a precedent set by a supreme court judgment last month, when Surrey county council’s decision to extend planning permission for an oil drilling well at Horse Hill, on the Weald, was quashed.

Rescued chicks favour seafood, suggesting they turn to urban diet as adults from necessity rather than preference

Herring gulls have wrecked many a harbourside picnic, pouncing on unsuspecting people trying to enjoy a Cornish pasty, a sandwich or a bag of chips.

But a study from the University of Exeter suggests that gull chicks prefer seafood even after being raised on a diet of the sort of scraps found around humans.

Satellite analysis looked at credits sold by Finite Carbon, which runs some of North America’s largest offset projects

This story is co-published with SourceMaterial and Floodlight

Some forest carbon offsets sold by the biggest offsetting company in the US offer little or no benefit to the climate, a satellite analysis has found.

NYC has lagged behind the UK in waste disposal. But with wheelie bins replacing bin bags, we’re finally catching up

Last year, 200 composting bins were rolled out in New York City, with a unit on every other corner you could open and close via an app. This was exciting for those of us who have hit an age when rubbish disposal is something we think about. For a while, my kids indulged me in my need to discuss composting – whether our bag would fit in the bin; how good the exercise made us feel; whether it actually did anything useful or not – before pointing out I was talking about it too much. This week, a new fleet of wheelie bins has been introduced across the city, and the excitement has been almost too much to bear.

The “trash revolution” as Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, put it while placing a black bin bag in a wheelie bin in front of reporters on Monday, sounds like a characteristic piece of hyperbole from the man, but for once he wasn’t exaggerating. Like banking technology, rubbish disposal is one of those baffling areas in which the US in general, but New York in particular, is wildly behind Britain.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

A team led by an Australian researcher captured the pair swimming about 1.5km after two failed attempts

A record-breaking swim by two lion brothers across a predator-filled African river has been documented by a team led by a researcher from an Australian university.

The two-male lion coalition was filmed crossing the Kazinga Channel in Uganda at night using high-definition heat detection cameras on drones.

After decades of bags lining the streets, the mayor has proudly wheeled out a McKinsey-approved trash can

The revolution will not be televised. Unless it’s Mayor Eric Adams’s Trash Revolution, of course. In which case a press conference will be held, music blasted, and every camera crew in the five boroughs invited.

On Monday the mayor of New York, with Jessica Tisch, the sanitation commissioner, by his side, unveiled New York City’s first official trash bin. The mayor wheeled the new NYC Bin down Gracie Mansion’s driveway and, with his characteristic swagger, demonstrated how the innovative new technology works: you open the lid and you put the rubbish in. It’s highly intuitive technology.