Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Millions of years ago, animals adapted to become warm-blooded amid huge climactic changes. Now scientists hope these clues from the past could help us understand what lies ahead In Chicago’s Field Museum, behind a series of access-controlled doors, are about 1,500 dinosaur fossil specimens. The palaeobiologist Jasmina Wiemann walks straight past the bleached leg bones – some as big as her – neither does she glance at the fully intact spinal cord, stained red by iron oxides filling the spaces where there was once organic material. She only has eyes for the deep chocolate-brown fossils: these are the ones containing preserved organic matter – bones that offer unprecedented insights into creatures that went extinct millions of years ago. Wiemann is part of the burgeoning field of conservation palaeobiology, where researchers are looking to the deep past to predict future extinction vulnerability. At a time when humans could be about to witness a sixth mass extinction, studying fossil records is particularly useful for understanding how the natural world responded to problems before we arrived: how life on Earth reacted to environmental change over time, how species adapted to planet-scale temperature changes, or what to expect when ocean geochemical cycles change. Continue reading...

Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds next most sighted in RSPB survey involving 600,000 participants A friendly if slightly tuneless chirp is the most ubiquitous birdsong in British gardens with the house sparrow topping the Big Garden Birdwatch charts for the 21st consecutive year, according to the annual RSPB survey. Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds were the next most-sighted birds by more than 600,000 participants in the world’s largest wildlife garden survey. Continue reading...

So far, biodiversity and agricultural productivity could not be reconciled because the socio-ecological system of agriculture is highly complex, and the interactions between humans and the environment are difficult to capture using conventional methods. A research team now shows a promising way to achieve both goals at the same time. They focus on further developing artificial intelligence in combination with collective human judgement: hybrid intelligence.

Exclusive: Australian Energy Markets Commission set interim value for cutting emissions that should reach $420/t CO-e by 2050 Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast New energy market laws should set a carbon price starting at $70 a tonne, rising steadily to six times that by mid-century, according to the agency that sets the nation’s electricity and gas market rules. In a report released without fanfare at the end of March, the Australian Energy Markets Commission (AEMC) announced an interim value of cutting emissions, starting at $70 per tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent in 2024. That price should increase steadily to reach $420/t CO-e by 2050, when Australia aims to reach net zero carbon emissions. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...