With Nature

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of waterHalf of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said.The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures. Continue reading...
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Authorities fear progress in containing the fires in the Gironde and Madrid regions may be set back by temperatures expected to hit the low 40sin BrusselsThe European Union’s crisis-management team is expecting difficult weeks ahead, fearing a further outbreak of wildfires in Italy and Greece as the summer goes on.“A firefighter will focus on protecting people. They will focus on protecting houses, protecting a business, a company, because this is something that matters for all our society. And indeed, sometimes by focusing on that, they cannot extinguish fire, [as] they would do it if it would be just forest. So this is new, this is worrying. And of course also, this means that we need to adapt our methods of fighting the fires.” Continue reading...
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Findings can inform conversations about global climate reparations and financing for mitigations, researchers sayCaribbean nations suffered $53.2bn (£40bn) of damage from climate-fuelled disasters between 2000 and 2024, research into the cost of the climate crisis to developing small islands has found.The figure is more than 90% of the total $57bn in economic damage caused by floods, storms and drought across 39 developing island nations in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, according to a study by development thinktank ODI Global. Continue reading...
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Growing number of studies assessing whether heat training can help people prepare for scorching temperaturesEven as summer temperatures soar, the sauna trend is booming, with some venues touting them as a way to beat the heat. But while experts have urged caution about sweating it out in hot weather, a growing number of studies are considering whether heat training could help people prepare for heatwaves.With parts of the UK experiencing their fourth heatwave of the year, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued heat health alerts across much of England. The warnings follow an unprecedented summer, with western Europe experiencing its hottest June on record. Continue reading...
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A delicacy for centuries and a key part of Native tradition, the lake whitefish has seen its population crash. Researchers know why … but stopping it is another matterFrom the basement of the Sandusky library, page 29 of the book Sandusky of To-Day proclaims the town to be the “largest fresh water fish market in the world”. Two pages later, an image of the lake whitefish, referred to as “Sandusky’s pride”, takes up the entire page.But the book was published in 1888. Continue reading...
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Adopting organic free-range model in UK could lead to greenhouse emissions equivalent to 2,316,000 tonnes of CO2, study suggestsOrganic eggs are twice as bad for the climate as eggs from chickens living in cages, research suggests.According to the study, switching the UK’s entire egg production to an organic free-range model would lead to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2,316,000 tonnes of CO2 (tCO2e), while production through a fully caged system would emit 1,184,000 tCO2e. Continue reading...
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No other bird speaks to us quite so directly, its serenade conjuring memories of old family talesI wake early on these bright summer mornings. And now that the birds in my garden have mostly fallen silent, only one is still serenading me at this hour: the aptly named song thrush. Its measured, deliberate repetitions – which this particular bird has provided without a break since the turn of the year – are unmistakable.Whenever I hear a song thrush, I’m taken back in time. First, to my childhood, when the first sign of spring was when thrushes started singing from the roofs of our suburban housing estate as I walked home from school in the dim light of a February afternoon. Continue reading...
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Residents struggle to take in the devastation five days after El Morro was evacuated as fires burned across countryside west of Spanish capitalThe handwritten sign taped to the front gate of a house in the mountains an hour west of Madrid offered as succinct a summary of recent events as you will find.“EMPTY,” it said. “No people or animals here.” Continue reading...
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What once felt exceptional now arrives with grim regularity​ all over the continent, and it will only get worse• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereSpain has changed immeasurably since I arrived here 10 years ago to begin work as the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent.Over that time, the push for Catalan independence has exploded, sputtered and faded out; the Covid pandemic has hit with unimaginable ferocity, before seeming to linger for a face-masked eternity; and Podemos and Ciudadanos – the two upstart parties that once seemed likely to alter the Spanish political landscape irrevocably – have risen and fallen. Continue reading...
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Ryder Williams, 16, saved a boy from drowning in Santa Cruz, California – the first rescue of his careerA rookie, teenage California lifeguard who saved a young boy from drowning amid massive waves – while a bystander recorded dramatic video – has spent his whole life preparing for such a moment, according to his father.Ryder Williams, 16, said he refused to let go of the child because he knew the boy would almost certainly die if he did, the lifeguard’s father, Shane, recounted on Tuesday, three days after the pulse-pounding rescue. Continue reading...
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Fossil of Austronaga minuta, a marine predator from the Triassic PeriodWei WangA tiny, long-necked marine predator that lived 245 million years ago is the oldest reptile ever found with an intact digestive system.The exquisitely preserved fossil, including almost the entire skeleton as well as the stomach, liver and intestines, was found in Yunnan province in China in 2023 and is named Austronaga minuta. Read more The shocking fossils that show T. rex wasn’t the king of the dinosaursEven blood vessels and the scales of a partially digested fish meal are visible in the remains. Advertisement if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }“A fossil this age with such clear preservation of its organs is really a world treasure,” says John Long at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the research.Austronaga dates back to the Triassic Period, when dinosaurs first evolved, but it isn’t a dinosaur. It belongs to a broader group called archosaurs, which includes dinosaurs, birds and crocodiles, but not other famous marine reptiles like mosasaurs or ichthyosaurs. Free newsletter Sign up to The Earth Edition Sign up to newsletterThe archosaurs were incredibly diverse in the Triassic and included “all kinds of interesting and strange-looking reptiles”, says Stephan Spiekman at the Natural History Museum Stuttgart, Germany, a member of the team that analysed the fossil. Only later, during the Jurassic and beyond, did they become more restricted, mostly being limited to dinosaurs, including birds, and crocodiles.This specimen is a mere 60 centimetres in length, but as it is the only known example and the reptile’s age at death is unknown, it is impossible to say whether the species grew larger, says Spiekman.Illustration of Austronaga minutaGabriel UguetoHowever, he is confident that it was unlikely to have reached the size of its very long relative Dinocephalosaurus, the “Chinese sea dragon”, which could easily grow to over 4 metres.“This was certainly a good and agile swimmer, mainly using its tail for swimming, its long front flippers for steering and its long neck to catch fish,” says Spiekman. “Austronaga probably would have looked a little like a lizard or a croc trying to be a seal or an otter and likely would have had scaly skin, for example.”The fossil shows that the basic plan of the reptilian digestive tract has changed little in 245 million years, he says, and the “straight and simple intestines is what we see in most modern predatory reptiles, including those eating fish”.Although the fossil is of high quality, the internal organs of Austronaga are only preserved in two dimensions. This is unlike those of a 380-million-year-old fossil of an armoured fish that Long and his colleagues described in 2022, which is regarded as having the oldest known organs of any vertebrate.“But this is still an incredibly well-preserved fossil,” he says.Journal Reference: Science Advances DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeb7528
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The New Scientist Book Club has been reading Slow Gods by Claire NorthThe New Scientist Book Club has spent July reading Claire North’s space opera Slow Gods. Set in the far future, it follows the fortunes of a civilisation that has just learned that their planet will be destroyed by a supernova – in 100 years’ time.“What does it mean to look into the heavens and know the exact date when a star will die and with it, your world?” North wrote in a fascinating essay for book club members on why they started the book with this conceit. “What choices do you make, and what price would you pay to save yourself – or your civilisation?”Alongside this end-of-the-world tale, Slow Gods is also a love story between North’s protagonist Maw, a pilot who can navigate the dangers of faster-than-light travel but who is a little prone to murdering people, and Gebre, a citizen of that planet on the brink of annihilation, Adjumir. Advertisement if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); } Read more Read an extract from Slow Gods by Claire NorthOur science-fiction columnist Emily H. Wilson had heartily recommended this one: “It has been a while since I have read a piece of science fiction so purely delightful.” I was also enraptured. North’s writing was elegant, insightful and effortlessly funny (I hate try-hard humour in my fiction). And the concept at the heart of the story, the idea of how a civilisation might deal with imminent, but not all that imminent, destruction? It was fascinating and terrifying; as North told me in our interview for book club members, this is a deliberate parallel with climate change. “Subtle metaphor it is not,” they said.Slow Gods wasn’t only a hit with me and Emily – I think it’s one of our most popular books so far with members. “The writing is gorgeous, and it has the big concept space opera feel that I really like,” wrote adidubey on our Discord channel. “One of the more satisfying reads we have had,” added Matthew. “This book club usually picks things I wouldn’t and some are good and some less so (none that I have not finished) but there is a lot of variety and it gets me out of my rut of only reading the familiar.”I did find the opening a little stodgy and slow to get going, which is often a problem for space operas, as the writer looks to set their galactic scene. Butterfly368 was with me on this: “The beginning was a bit slow and confusing, but the deeper I got, the more invested I became. It’s one of those books that gradually pulls you in rather than grabbing you from page one,” they wrote. “I’m also enjoying its commentary on the meaning we create in our lives and on society and culture more broadly. It’s given me quite a bit to think about.” Melissa, however, loved it from the first. “50 pages in and totally engrossed. I’ve felt gut punched with recognition at some of the terrible treatment of people but also laughed into an empty room a couple of times. Whyyyyyy do I have to go to work?” she wrote. Read more Why I started my sci-fi novel with a world-ending supernovaBarbara Howe had some interesting comparisons to make with some of her favourite reads. “Reminded me a bit at the start of [Ann Leckie’s] Ancillary Justice, mainly in how much I was struggling to understand what was going on, and how many questions were raised early on that didn’t get answered until much later – if at all,” she wrote. “Also, whenever [Maw] talked about having trouble with social situations and understanding his feelings, I was reminded of Murderbot ‘having an emotion’.”North, incidentally, had some interesting things to say in our chat about Maw’s struggle to fit in; he “is the protagonist you write when you are an adult diagnosed with autism late in your life”, they told me. North and I also dug into the multiple pronouns used in this story – something Carrie noted on Discord, writing that “I’m really enjoying the world building and while they can take a little getting used to, feel that the introduction of new pronouns really add to the story and provide insight into the cultures we’re being introduced to”. “People exist on a spectrum,” said North in our chat. “In the English language, we may still only really have ‘he’ and ‘she’ as the commonly accepted expression of gender, but that spectrum is enormous. It ranges from Arnold Schwarzenegger through to Harry Kane through to Alan Carr, then straight on keeps on going. The enormity of that spectrum feels too big for ‘he’ and ‘she’ to actually cover.”Alan_P was another big fan. “I absolutely loved it. I’m looking up other books by the same author in my library which is something I rarely do,” he wrote. “I also (unexpectedly for me – I’m not a fan of romance in general) found myself really enjoying the love story at the centre of the book. For me it’s the very clever way that the author has woven these different themes of not quite requited love, galaxy spanning science fiction, commentary of contemporary events and a really good story that makes it one of my favourites in a good while.” A bit of a success, then!When you make a purchase via the links on this page, we receive a commission.
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Shutterstock/Elena VeselovaChidren are an impressionable lot. In our youth, we are like sponges, picking up habits and neural pathways that will resonate for the rest of our lives. It is no wonder, then, that countries including the UK, Portugal and Mexico have enacted policies to restrict the advertising of unhealthy food to children, in a bid to tackle soaring childhood obesity levels. But if this makes you think that adults are off the hook, then think again.As we explore, eating appropriately for your age matters no matter how old you are. If you are middle-aged, you may have noticed the warning signs: a horrible hangover after drinking an amount of alcohol that would have left you unaffected decades earlier, or getting increasingly jittery after drinking coffee. These are indicators of more global changes occurring in the body, making us less and less able to tolerate a subpar diet. Breaking bad diet habits – a glass of wine after the kids have gone to bed, or a sneaky croissant from a coffee shop because you skipped breakfast – as we age is just as important as instilling healthy eating in children.Breaking bad diet habits as we age is as important as instilling healthy eating in childrenWhat’s more, once we reach the age of 60, it becomes ever easier to fall into a “nutrient gap” – when a slowdown in our metabolic rate means that we eat less, but age-related physiological changes mean that we actually need more vitamins and minerals from every bite of food. Advertisement if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }That’s the bad news. Recognising these changes in our metabolism and responding accordingly – you know the drill: eating more vegetables, legumes, whole grains and fish, and less ultra-processed food high in sugar, salt and saturated fat – can help set you up for a healthy old age.But don’t wait until you are already in your latter decades to take action. A number of studies show that, if we tune up our diet in middle age, this can have a big impact on our health and wellbeing years down the line, while a younger biological age also helps you reap the benefits of a good diet. Ditch the junk and your older self will thank you.
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TwistedDoodles
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Tom Gauld
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Josie FordFeedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and moreScratch thatWhen news editor Alexandra Thompson sent Feedback some research about the social science of long fingernails, a paper that runs to 20 pages, we knew we had to read it. Never mind Alex’s remark – “I don’t think long fingernails is that deep” – Feedback was delving in.The work has the delightfully verbose title “From status symbol to polysemous sign: Interpreting the meaning of artificially extended fingernails”. Wondering why people sometimes wear “artificially elongated fingernails” and how this behaviour is interpreted by the rest of society, the authors examined 45 newspaper articles and identified “eight interpretive frames” through which we can understand the trend for super-long nails. Advertisement if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }Some of what is happening can be traced back to Thorstein Veblen’s classic analysis The theory of the leisure class: An economic study of institutions (1899). Veblen posited that the ruling class are engaged in “conspicuous leisure” in order to differentiate themselves from those doing actual work. One way to do that is to grow your nails really long, or wear nail extensions, to signal that you don’t have to work with your hands. However, the authors of the study don’t think that is what’s going on today.They say that “the clear legibility of long nails as a symbol of leisure has been lost in contemporary societies”, since nail extensions are now found “on the hands of service workers as well as managers”. Instead, what is happening is frantic innovation in the beauty industry, driven by “capitalist market mechanisms”. This is accelerated by social media, where nail artists show off their most extravagant creations, with the result that “the status of nail work shifts from a routinised service to an autonomous art form whose value lies in complexity, originality and photogenic quality”. And that barely scratches the surface (see what we did there?). Never mind seeing a world in a grain of sand, you can see all of human society in a fingernail.If we hadn’t enjoyed this paper enough, the citations are a gold mine. We had no idea there was a book called The Finger: A handbook, but we want to hand out some sort of prize to the person who came up with that subtitle.We also want to point out that the authors of the nails paper missed a trick. The proper use of super-long fingernails is to make really good tapping sounds in ASMR videos. We had to rewrite part of this column at the last minute, so we put on one such video to ease the resulting stress, only to wind up blissing out for half an hour and then writing the remainder in a panic.A hill of beansFeedback is pleased that our readers continue to bring us unhelpful units of measurement. Thanks go to Tony Levitt, who was at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, UK, when he found a display explaining what goes into making a wind turbine. Apparently, it “can require over 1000kg of rare earth elements to build (the same weight as 2500 tins of baked beans!)”.As Tony realised, this will look very different depending on whether the cans contain baked beans or not, and the display doesn’t specify. Tony decided to investigate. “Looking in our kitchen cupboard I found a solitary can, labelled as ‘400g net’, ” he writes. “According to my kitchen scales the combined can and contents actually weighs 468g.” If Feedback’s maths is right (and it frequently isn’t), a full can is about seven times heavier than an empty one. We therefore find ourselves knowing the amount of rare earth elements needed to build a wind turbine, but only to within a factor of seven.“To be fair to the Sedgwick, it is a great little museum,” adds Tony.Meanwhile, Elizabeth Osbos pointed us to a marine forecast warning of a “rapidly rising swell”, posted on X on 6 June by New Zealand’s MetService – Te Ratonga Tirorangi. Specifically, “Combined wave heights in eastern offshore waters could reach or exceed the height of the Ohakune Carrot”.Feedback wasn’t previously aware of the Ohakune Carrot, but we have familiarised ourselves. The small town of Ohakune lies at the heart of a major carrot- and parsnip-growing region, and to commemorate this industry, it has a giant fibreglass carrot standing by the road. The carrot is 7.5 metres tall and may be the largest model carrot in the world.New Zealand readers: is the height of the Ohakune Carrot so generally and universally understood that it can be safely used to convey the heights of dangerous ocean waves?GaslitIn our ongoing quest for the science-themed tourist attraction with the most limited possible audience, we mentioned Denmark’s Gas Museum as a place that not many people would want to go to (30 May). This included John Blakey, who alerted us to its existence, but hasn’t actually attended.But it has competition. Rebecca Ferguson (the professor of learning futures at the Open University, not the actor) and Bill Dickinson both wrote in to tell us about another museum of gas: the Fakenham Gasworks Museum in Norfolk, UK.“I wouldn’t want to gaslight John, but he may have forgotten [it],” writes Rebecca. She adds that “TripAdvisor ranks it fourth of the top attractions of Fakenham – beating both the Chocolate Factory Shop and the ruined abbey”.Bill says the staff are very friendly, cheerfully turning a blind eye when he inadvertently stayed half an hour after closing time.Got a story for Feedback?You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
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If the sun suddenly disappeared, how long would life on Earth last, from humans and plants to subterranean bacteria? And why do humans so readily adopt fiction into our lives, and feel emotion about characters as though they were someone close to us in real life?
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An Australian reader with an abundance of flies in their locality tries to answer a question that has intrigued many of our readers
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One correspondent with a particularly intelligent dog begs to differ with this question, while another looks to deepen the mystery
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From tides to eclipses, the slow departure of our moon will affect life on Earth, say our correspondents
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Authorities say local transmission of H5 bird flu virus among South Australian birds signals ‘shift in the situation’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia has entered a new phase in dealing with the incursion of deadly H5N1 bird flu, with authorities confirming on Wednesday that local transmission had taken place, and Victoria confirming first case of the highly virulent strain Thursday.“We have had what is suggestive of local transmission for the first time,” Julie Collins, the federal minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry, said on Wednesday afternoon, after 11 suspected detections were reported in South Australian birds. Continue reading...
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A delicacy for centuries and a key part of Native tradition, the lake whitefish has seen its population crash. Researchers know why … but stopping it is another matterFrom the basement of the Sandusky library, page 29 of the book Sandusky of To-Day proclaims the town to be the “largest fresh water fish market in the world”. Two pages later, an image of the lake whitefish, referred to as “Sandusky’s pride”, takes up the entire page.But the book was published in 1888. Continue reading...
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A drone pilot has captured what is believed to be only the fourth complete humpback whale birth ever recorded on film anywhere in the world, and the first ever documented by drone. While conducting aerial observations of migrating humpback whales off the NSW north coast for the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (Orrca), Alexander Forrest witnessed an adult female give birth in calm sea conditions, capturing the newborn calf's first moments of life, including its first breath and union with its motherRead more:Pirouetting and gaping: mysterious whale behaviour documented as humpback migration begins Continue reading...
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In this disorienting book, a poet argues we have been looking at nature – and ourselves – the wrong wayThe eastern breakwater of Granton harbour is almost 1km long, and swimmers can follow its crooked finger, heading straight out into the Firth of Forth, while benefiting from its reassuring presence. One Thursday lunchtime, I thought: why not, let’s give it a go, and headed for its tip. I felt cold, but, as I progressed, I seemed to grow strangely warmer. I did not notice the complaints from my body: the creeping numbness which proceeded from my fingers to my elbow, nor the coldness of my pee. Only by the time I exited the water, club footed and claw handed, did it hit me that I was hypothermic.The irony of this reckless exercise was that in my swim bag there was a book by Melanie Challenger called Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World. It’s an ambitious examination of the wisdom of bodies, a rhizomatic guide not just to our own, but also all the living forms around us: from bacteria to chimps. Her case is that we have ignored or misread the agency and purpose of bodies to our detriment; in a way it is a plea to listen to them. I wish I had read it before my ill-advised swim. Continue reading...
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Biologists say cargo ships stranded in Gulf may carry highly potent invasive species around the world as trade resumesMiddle East crisis – live updatesThe closure of the strait of Hormuz has created conditions for an extreme global biodiversity threat, with scientists warning that thousands of stranded ships could spread invasive marine species across the world’s oceans once they begin sailing again.More than 1,500 commercial vessels have been stuck in the Gulf since the strategic waterway closed on 28 February after the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran. An international team of marine biologists said that with the stranded ships remaining motionless, their hulls were becoming encrusted with marine life – from microbes and algae to barnacles and other invertebrates – that could hitchhike to ports around the world when trade resumed. Continue reading...
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No other bird speaks to us quite so directly, its serenade conjuring memories of old family talesI wake early on these bright summer mornings. And now that the birds in my garden have mostly fallen silent, only one is still serenading me at this hour: the aptly named song thrush. Its measured, deliberate repetitions – which this particular bird has provided without a break since the turn of the year – are unmistakable.Whenever I hear a song thrush, I’m taken back in time. First, to my childhood, when the first sign of spring was when thrushes started singing from the roofs of our suburban housing estate as I walked home from school in the dim light of a February afternoon. Continue reading...
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Helpston, Cambridgeshire: I picture Henry as a young lad, hiding in flowerbeds, chasing butterflies, learning to love natureIf there’s one thing better than a gatekeeper butterfly, it’s wild marjoram playing host to a flurry of gatekeepers. Almost impossible to count for all the rising, fluttering and resettling, their warm orange and brown wings with white double-dots in a black eye-spot are only a wing-flick away from mottled invisibility: now you see me, now you don’t.I’m their lone admirer, sat on a mossy stone in the garden at John Clare cottage, but I don’t feel alone. Honeysuckle has me in a heady hug, undulating fronds of hart’s-tongue fern wave from beneath a rock, the whiteness of a teneral damselfly in the grass intrigues and delights me. I know this garden has a long history of providing companionship, not least to the poet after whom the cottage is named, who knew “the woodbine at the garden gate” as “affection’s friend” and asked of the butterfly: “Wouldst thou in my garden come, / To join the bee’s delightful hum”. Continue reading...
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Potential toxic substance detected in several of 15 elephants found dead in Kenya’s Amboseli national parkOfficials are investigating the deaths of 15 elephants over the past month in Kenya’s Amboseli national park.The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said 10 of the elephants showed signs of partial paralysis before dying within two days. Continue reading...
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Conservationists are thrilled at the arrival of three juvenile birds at Willington Wetlands, hoping more will followA long orange beak poked curiously out from its wooden crate, followed by a sleek head and slender body. Then the first white stork of the morning flapped its wings and took to the air. Moments later a second emerged tentatively to stalk through the long grass, followed closely by a final sibling who stretched its wings and explored the length of the enclosure.The trio of juvenile white storks have just arrived at their new home in Willington Wetlands in Derbyshire and conservationists are hopeful that their presence will kickstart the return of the birds to the Midlands after an absence of more than 600 years. Continue reading...
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New flood storage areas and other measures will hold up to 8,900 cubic metres of water during storms at Wellholme Park.
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