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The stories of a whale, a panther and a butterfly help explain why new interpretations of the Endangered Species Act could be catastrophic for species’ survival.

Sale makes ‘Jodi’, a smaller relative of T rex, the ‘second most valuable dinosaur ever sold at auction’, Sotheby’s says A rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus, a smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex, sold at auction in New York this week for $47.3m, making it one of the world’s most expensive fossils. The skeleton, named “Jodi” after the person who found the remains in 2019, sold at Sotheby’s on Tuesday for $47.3m, “after a twelve-minute bidding battle that saw six bidders compete online and over the phones, before ultimately selling on the phone”, Sotheby’s said in a statement. Continue reading...

On the Bering Sea, Unalaska is the US’s most productive seafood port, employing thousands of workers. But Trump’s cuts, and his disastrous war with Iran, have caused chaos – and put Republican control of Congress at risk It was less than 17 hours until the start of Alaska’s lucrative Bering Sea crab season, and Oystein Lone was standing on a dock in the city of Unalaska, preparing to embark in rough conditions. The problem wasn’t the next day’s forecast of 60mph gusts, which would kick up white-capped swells and make crabbing, already one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, even more hazardous. Nor was it the question of whether there’d be enough red king, tanner and snow crabs to go around – state regulators had, in fact, announced higher quotas for the season. Continue reading...

Fraternities control access to coveted resources. They use humiliating rituals to bond with each other, enforce hierarchy, and belittle outsiders. Sound familiar?

With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push… The post Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Perhaps no issue has tested the political agility of Pennsylvania’s popular Gov. Josh Shapiro over the past two years more than data centers. In about 20 months, Shapiro went from introducing a fast-track permitting process that invited hyper-scale data centers to “move at the speed of business,” to kicking them out of the program and […]

PDEL, which will ringfence money for preventive policies, marks a welcome and potentially consequential addition John Healey’s debut budget was far from a blockbuster, but it may come to be remembered for the birth of a plucky new character in the tax and spend universe – little PDEL. It may not have the charm of Disney’s Wall-E, but PDEL (pronounced P-Del), or preventative departmental expenditure limit, to give it its full name, marks a welcome, and potentially very consequential, addition. Continue reading...

The destructive 1982-83 El Niño, then the strongest on record, eroded cliffs, leaving homes hanging precariously over the edges. A coastal scientist explains the escalating risks.

Randomised trials of omega-6s do not show an increase in inflammation caused by the fatty acid Read more in the Antiviral series If you’ve been online lately, you’ve probably been bombarded with the discourse about seed oils. Once a completely innocuous food that no one really talked about, they have become the enemy of the moment. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of health and human services in the US, has called them “toxic” and vowed to act against them. There are countless activewear-clad influencers online saying that nothing harms your health more than these products. Which is odd, because the Australian dietary guidelines say seed oils are basically fine. You should limit them because they’re high in calories but otherwise there’s no major reason – according to the guidelines and most experts – why you should avoid them. As Prof Lauren Ball, director of the University of Queensland’s Centre for Community Health and Wellbeing, says: “There’s no convincing evidence that eating seed oils like canola or sunflower oil in normal dietary amounts harms our health. In fact, these oils contain unsaturated fats, which are generally beneficial for cardiovascular health.” Dr Jason Wu, a professor at the University of New South Wales, agrees: “The evidence base consistently points to health benefits of eating seed oils.” Continue reading...

Pressure on Martin O’Neill after 2-0 defeat by Falkirk Hibs will face Rangers in Premier Sports Cup final Celtic slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Falkirk on Sunday to ramp up the scrutiny on manager Martin O’Neill after a run of three wins in 10 games. The Scottish champions had the chance to extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points, but never recovered from conceding a third-minute opener to Ethan Ross. Scott Tanser scored a second before half-time and the Bairns even had a third goal ruled out by a video assistant referee review for handball against Jacob Murrell. The majority of Celtic’s struggles this season have come in European competition as they crashed out of the Champions League qualifiers and have lost all three Europa League group matches. Continue reading...

Cars are a big reason city air is so grimy, and not just because of what comes out of the tailpipe. Researchers in South Korea now want to turn them into massive Roombas for city air, with a grille that scrubs roadside air as the car drives and a catcher that grabs brake dust where it's made. Continue Reading Category: Automotive, Transport Tags: Automotive, Air pollution, Microplastic, Eco-Friendly, Electric Vehicles

Gap, M&S, Topshop and more are taking a leaf from luxury label playbooks to satisfy savvier generation of shoppers High street brands that boomed in the noughties before the squeeze of both sustainably minded consumers and the rise of ultra-cheap online labels are staging a comeback. This time, rather than focusing solely on trend-led affordable designs, the names familiar to any shopper are courting luxury fashion, A-list collaborations and enhanced services in an attempt to engage consumers. Continue reading...

What if someone told you the truth about the economy? For years, UK governments have tried spending more, spending less, cutting red tape, leaving the EU, levelling up, and they have still failed to increase growth per person. So what’s the lesson from the great British fairytale? On the latest episode, the rebel economists Karel Williams and Sukhdev Johal explain to Aditya Chakrabortty why they believe praying for growth is a fool’s dream – and why it won’t improve your life Aditya’s suggested reading list for Karel Williams and Sukhdev Johal: As we say in the podcast, I’ve championed the work of Karel and Sukhdev and their colleagues in the Guardian for many years, and some of my columns are a good introduction to their approach. • In our conversation we look at what life after growth looks like for towns and suburbs, and what it should look like. This report from South Wales in 2016 examines the present-day reality. • For a broader analysis of how the UK has become highly unequal and increasingly stagnant, try this. • As part of the Foundational Economy collective, Karel and Sukhdev put a lot of their analysis into freely available working papers. That circumvents the leisureliness and expense of academic publishing and gets their arguments in front of a wider public. A good example is this one on the cost of living crisis. • More recently, they’ve focused on the broken water system of England and Wales in a book called Murky Water: Challenging an Unsustainable System. Support the Guardian ► https://support.theguardian.com The Guardian on YouTube: The Guardian ► www.youtube.com/@theguardian Guardian News ► www.youtube.com/@guardiannews Today in Focus ► www.youtube.com/@todayinfocuspodcast Stateside ► www.youtube.com/@statesidepodcast Politics Weekly ► https://www.youtube.com/@politicsweekly Science Weekly ► https://www.youtube.com/@scienceweeklypod Football Weekly ► https://www.youtube.com/@FootballWeeklyPodcast Continue reading...

A forgotten Popcorn Time updater left up to 350,000 Macs open to takeover. Here’s what researchers found and why you should uninstall the app. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

Chair of National Gallery’s First Nations advisory group says the technology is undermining artists’ agency and the authenticity of their work Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast AI is taking First Nations art and turning it into “Temu slop”, the Pitjantjatjara artist Sally Scales has said. Scales, the chair of the National Gallery of Australia’s First Nations advisory group, says the technology is undermining the agency of First Nations artists and the authenticity of their work and represents a “a theft” of cultural knowledge. Continue reading...

Axios reported that Qatari mediators held more than 12 hours of talks in Tehran on Friday to reach a deal to avoid a resumption of American-led attacks on Iran.

There has been a steep rise in the number of people labelled autistic over the last 20 years. Is that down to greater understanding – or overdiagnosis? The home of 85-year-old Uta Frith does not exactly look like the latest front in the culture wars. Located in a serenely quiet corner of north-west London, it suggests a life still well lived, a set of deep interests and an idyllic kind of retirement. There are so many books that some are reachable only using a very tall ladder. The four hours I spend talking to her – and her husband Chris, an expert in schizophrenia – are an absolute pleasure. There is no sense of outrage or upset: even when I ask her about the stream of hostile and abusive emails she has recently received, she is relaxed and phlegmatic. “I tend to cope by just deleting them,” she says. “I don’t dwell on it.” “It” is a reference to the controversy kicked up by her recently expressed views on a subject that sits at the heart of Frith’s academic career: what it is to be autistic, and who should or shouldn’t qualify for a diagnosis. Back in March, Dame Uta Frith – she was honoured with the title seven years ago – gave an interview to TES magazine (formerly the Times Educational Supplement) scattered with stark pronouncements. Among them was a claim that the so-called autistic spectrum has “gone on being more and more accommodating”, to the point that it “has come to its collapse”. Then, in August, she published a piece in the academic journal Psychological Medicine claiming autism was in dire danger of being turned from a “precise, clinical” term into a “vague, culturally amplified identity category”. Continue reading...

In the 1960’s, an odd experiment showed planarian worms could transfer memories by consuming each other. It was a sensational finding—that is until the worms stopped learning.

The hemoglobin in humans’ blood is not the standard for all critters—and one group of Antarctic fish are the only vertebrates to not have red blood cells at all

Once nearly extinct, wisent adapted to life in the Bialowieza Forest. Human intervention kept them from disappearing, and now humans are trying to return them to their true habitat

With heir apparent Danny Tommo also in custody, Robinson’s conviction for harassing journalists is blow to anti-migrant movement The verdict was met with a groan from Tommy Robinson’s supporters, who had sat behind the dock throughout his harassment trial. It took more than 11 hours of jury deliberations to find the far-right activist guilty of harassment causing fear of violence to two journalists, enough time for a band of lieutenants and hangers-on to get their hopes up that he might be acquitted. Continue reading...

Allerton Project attracts abundant wildlife and its success can offers clues to reversing the sharp drop in populations Farmer Alastair Leake is standing in a field of sprouting winter wheat, pointing at his experiment. One side was ploughed before planting, with green shoots breaking through neat rows of upturned soil. On the other, the crop was drilled directly into the earth, emerging through a messy carpet of “trash” – stems, stubble and crop residue from previous harvests. “When we’re watching to see where the birds are landing to feed, none of them are going on to the ploughed side,” says Leake, the director of the Allerton Project farm, standing on the trashy side. “They’re all coming and feeding down here. Continue reading...

Perimenopause has become a hot topic, with celebrities sharing their experiences and doctors offering tips and advice online. But despite the benefits of growing awareness, a rising number of women are now encountering misinformation about treatments such as HRT. Madeleine Finlay hears from Dr Paula Briggs, a consultant in sexual and reproductive health, about why experts have raised the alarm. Science correspondent Nicola Davis gives the facts on symptoms, tests and treatments Continue reading...

Richard Dawkins’ first work has thrilled fans and frustrated critics for five decades. The science has moved on, but any writer looking to supplant its place must learn its lessons Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was not predicted to be a success. Its initial print run, published this week in 1976, was just 5,000. It went on to sell millions, and is perhaps the most influential work of pop-science ever. For 50 years, it has been the go-to resource for the layperson seeking to understand evolution. What accounts for its enduring power? Prof Dawkins’ central claim, that “we are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” was provocative, stripping the messy stuff of human and other life down to a simple law. And yet the book is primarily concerned with proving that complex, selfless behaviour such as altruism in animals can emerge from these basic “selfish” drives, satisfyingly resolving an apparent paradox. Prof Dawkins – a zoologist by training – also succeeded in conjuring entertaining, vividly drawn vignettes of the lives of animals, from lions and ants to hawks and honeybees, to make his points. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Brazilian media ridicule defeated candidate over ‘shameful’ absconsion to US and bizarre letter with wrong coat of arms Flávio Bolsonaro had hoped that by Sunday night people would be calling him the next president of Brazil. Instead, the far-right politician’s decision to flee to the US after losing the election and – for 58 minutes – to declare himself “Brazil’s true president-elect”, has made him a laughing stock, with Brazilian newspapers and commentators raining a barrage of scornful adjectives down on the conquered candidate. Continue reading...

Learn how to opt out of data brokers for free, and decide if a paid service is worth paying for. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

It can be difficult to see through the array of flashy, protein-packed products and determine whether you need more of it—and which foods to consume to get it. We asked health experts about the benefits and drawbacks of chasing protein