Science & Environment
Nature decline is now nearing dangerous tipping points, WWF warns
Getty ImagesHuman activity is continuing to drive what conservation charity the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) calls a “catastrophic” loss of species.
From elephants in tropical forests to hawksbill turtles off the Great Barrier Reef, populations are plummeting, according to a stocktake of the world’s wildlife.
The Living Planet Report, a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural world, reveals global wildlife populations have shrunk by an average of 73% in the past 50 years.
The loss of wild spaces was “putting many ecosystems on the brink”, WWF UK head Tanya Steele said, and many habitats, from the Amazon to coral reefs, were “on the edge of very dangerous tipping points”.
© Shutterstock / COULANGES / WWF-SwedenThe report is based on the Living Planet Index of more than 5,000 bird, mammal, amphibian, reptile and fish population counts over five decades.
Among many snapshots of human-induced wildlife loss, it reveals 60% of the world’s Amazon pink river dolphins have been wiped out by pollution and other threats, including mining and civil unrest.
It also captured hopeful signs of conservation success.
A sub-population of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains of East Africa increased by about 3% per year between 2010 and 2016, for example.
But the WWF said these “isolated successes are not enough, amid a backdrop of the widespread destruction of habitats”.
Tom Oliver, professor of ecology at the University of Reading, who is unconnected with the report, said when this information was combined with other datasets, insect declines for example, “we can piece together a robust – and worrying – picture of global biodiversity collapse”.
Getty ImagesThe report found habitat degradation and loss was the biggest threat to wildlife, followed by overexploitation, invasive species, disease, climate change and pollution.
Lead author and WWF chief scientific adviser Mike Barrett said through human action, “particularly the way that we produce and consume our food, we are increasingly losing natural habitat”.
The report also warns nature loss and climate change are fast pushing the world towards irreversible tipping points, including the potential “collapse” of the Amazon rainforest, whereby it can no longer lock away planet-warming carbon and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Getty Images“Please don’t just feel sad about the loss of nature,” Mr Barrett said.
“Be aware that this is now a fundamental threat to humanity and we’ve really got to do something now.”
Valentina Marconi, from the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, told BBC News the natural world was in a “precarious position” but with urgent, collective action from world leaders “we still have the chance to reverse this”.
© WWF-Aus / Chris Johnson
© Jacqueline Lisboa / WWF-BrazilMs Steele said the report was an “incredible wake-up call”.
“Healthy ecosystems underpin our health, prosperity and wellbeing,” she told BBC News.
“We don’t think this sits on the shoulders of the average citizen – it’s the responsibility of business and of government.
“We need to look after our land and our most precious wild places for future generations.”
After more than 100 years hidden in the icy waters of Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has been revealed in extraordinary 3D detail.
For the first time we can see the vessel, which sank in 1915 and lies 3,000m down at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, as if the murky water has been drained away.
The digital scan, which is made from 25,000 high resolution images, was captured when the ship was found in 2022.
It’s been released as part of a new documentary called Endurance, which will be shown at cinemas.
The team has scoured the scan for tiny details, each of which tell a story linking the past to the present.
In the picture below you can see the plates that the crew used for daily meals, left scattered across the deck.
Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust / National GeographicIn the next picture there’s a single boot that might have belonged to Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second-in-command.
Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust / National GeographicPerhaps most extraordinary of all is a flare gun that’s referenced in the journals the crew kept.
Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust / National GeographicThe flare gun was fired by Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer, as the ship that had been the crew’s home was lost to the ice.
“Hurley gets this flare gun, and he fires the flare gun into the air with a massive detonator as a tribute to the ship,” explains Dr John Shears who led the expedition that found Endurance.
“And then in the diary, he talks about putting it down on the deck. And there we are. We come back over 100 years later, and there’s that flare gun, incredible.”
A doomed mission
Sir Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish explorer who led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.
But the mission was doomed from the outset.
Endurance became stuck in pack ice within weeks of setting off from South Georgia.
The ship, with the crew on board, drifted for months before the order was eventually given to abandon ship. Endurance finally sank on 21 November 1915.
Shackleton and his men were forced to travel for hundreds of miles over ice, land and sea to reach safety – miraculously all 27 of the crew survived.
Their extraordinary story was recorded in their diaries, as well as in Frank Hurley’s photographs, which have had colour added for the Endurance documentary.
BFI/Frank HurleyThe ship itself remained lost until 2022.
Its discovery made headlines around the world – and the footage of Endurance revealed that it is beautifully preserved by the icy waters.
The new 3D scan was made using underwater robots that mapped the wreck from every angle, taking thousands of photographs. These were then “stitched” together to create a digital twin.
While footage filmed at this depth can only show parts of Endurance in the gloom, the scan shows the complete 44m long wooden wreck from bow to stern – even recording the grooves carved into the sediment as the ship skidded to a halt on the seafloor.
The model reveals how the ship was crushed by the ice – the masts toppled and parts of the deck in tatters – but the structure itself is largely intact.
Shackleton’s descendants say Endurance will never be raised – and its location in one of the most remote parts of the globe means visiting the wreck again would be extremely challenging.
But Nico Vincent from Deep Ocean Search, who developed the technology for the scans, along with Voyis Imaging and McGill University, said the digital replica offers a new way to study the ship.
“It’s absolutely fabulous. The wreck is almost intact like she sank yesterday,” said Mr Vincent, who was also a co-leader for the expedition.
He said the scan could be used by scientists to study the sea life that has colonised the wreck, to analyse the geology of the sea floor, and to discover new artefacts.
“So this is really a great opportunity that we can offer for the future.”
The scan belongs to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust who also funded and organised the expedition to find Shackleton’s ship.
The Endurance documentary is premiering at the London Film Festival on 12 October and will be released in cinemas in the UK on 14 October.
Additional reporting Kevin Church
The winner of Fat Bear Week has finally been crowned – and she’s no stranger to the title.
Voters chose 128 Grazer, a mother bear who won Fat Bear Week last year, and whose cub was recently killed by her last remaining opponent in the competition, 32 Chunk.
The competition, which started a decade ago, allows viewers to watch live cameras of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve and pick their favourite brown bear after the animals have beefed up on salmon in preparation for winter.
In a post on X, explore.org, the nature network that runs the contest, said 128 Grazer was “the first working mom to ever be crowned champion”.
In July, two of Grazer’s cubs were swept over a waterfall, where Chunk – the most dominant bear on the river – attacked them both, according to explore.org. One later succumbed to its injuries.
The two bears were later pitted against each other in Fat Bear Week’s competition, with Grazer eventually coming out on top, winning more than double Chunk’s votes with more than 71,000 votes.
A highly defensive mother bear, the 20-year-old Grazer is raising her third litter.
“Her fearless nature is respected by other bears who often choose to give her space instead of risking a confrontation. This elevates Grazer’s rank in the bear hierarchy above almost all bears except for the largest males,” her bear profile states.
Fat Bear Week came after a grisly series of events this year. The beginning of the contest was delayed by one day after a female bear was killed by a male bear on camera.
Each year, 12 bears are chosen for the Fat Bear Week bracket and fans can vote online to decide the winner.
Grazer also beat Chunk in 2023, when nearly 1.4 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries, according to Katmai Conservancy and explore.org.
How can we test whether gravity is quantum?
AndreusK/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Though physicists have competing ideas of what quantum gravity could be like, they have yet to definitively determine whether the gravity that we experience is quantum at all. A new proposal lays out a way to dispute or affirm this by observing whether a quantum object’s state is affected when its gravity is measured.
Physicists have repeatedly shown that tiny objects are subject to quantum effects, but for large objects whose behaviour is highly affected by gravity – with black holes being the most extreme example – the same…
Employees of the State Archaeological Office have hung pictures of finds from a construction trailer during a main archaeological investigation on the Northvolt site.
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Sweden’s Northvolt on Wednesday said the head of its main plant, Europe’s first homegrown gigafactory for lithium-ion battery cells, will step down with immediate effect.
It comes shortly after the cash-strapped company announced plans to reduce its workforce by about 25% in Sweden as part of a major cost-cutting drive.
Mark Duchesne, CEO of Northvolt Ett, will be replaced on an interim basis by Angéline J. Bilodeau, the firm’s vice president of operations in North America, the company said in a statement.
The position will be held until the end of the year as the company seeks to secure a permanent replacement for CEO of Northvolt Ett, it added.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Northvolt is one of Europe’s most valuable privately held tech firms that builds lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle industry. It has partnerships with a number of major European automakers, including Volkswagen and Volvo.
In an update published Sept. 23, Northvolt said that following initial steps taken as part of a strategic review, the company had revised its scope of operations in Sweden “to ensure that its resources are focused on accelerating production in large-scale cell manufacturing at Northvolt Ett.”
The strategic action required the company to cut a total of 1,600 jobs in Sweden, Northvolt said.
Workers walk at the site of the Northvolt Ett factory in Skelleftea, north Sweden on February 23, 2022.
Jonathan Nackstrand | Afp | Getty Images
Alongside plans to lay off staff, Northvolt said at the time that it would suspend plans for a sizable expansion of Northvolt Ett, noting the project had been intended to provide an additional 30 gigawatt hours of annual cell manufacturing capacity.
On Tuesday, a Northvolt Ett subsidiary filed for bankruptcy following the decision to suspend the expansion project — an update that underscores the group’s deepening financial struggles.
Separately, Swedish automaker Volvo Cars on Wednesday announced deputy CEO Björn Annwall will step down from his current role as part of a management reshuffle.
The reorganization at Volvo Cars comes shortly after the firm scrapped its near-term goal of selling only electric vehicles, citing a need to be “pragmatic and flexible” amid changing market conditions and cooling demand.
Crude oil futures drifted lower Wednesday after sliding more than 4% the previous day.
The rally spurred by the risk of a wider Middle East war has stalled out amid uncertainty over how Israel will retaliate against Iran for last week’s ballistic missile strike. Chinese policymakers’ failure to deliver new economic stimulus measures at a press briefing this week also held energy prices in check.
Though prices are falling, Goldman Sachs sees global benchmark Brent jumping by $10 to $20 per barrel if an Israeli strike disrupts Iranian crude oil production, according to a Tuesday research note.
Here are Wednesday’s energy prices at around 8:02 a.m. ET:
- West Texas Intermediate November contract: $73.38 per barrel, down 19 cents, or 0.26%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil has gained more than 2%.
- Brent December contract: $77.02 per barrel, down 16 cents, or 0.21%. Year to date, the global benchmark is little changed.
- RBOB Gasoline November contract: $2.0607 per gallon, down 0.36%. Year to date, gasoline has fallen nearly 2%.
- Natural Gas November contract: $2.695 per thousand cubic feet, down 1.39%. Year to date, gas is ahead about 7%.
BBC David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work on proteins.
Demis Hassabis co-founded the artificial intelligence research company that became Google DeepMind.
The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000).
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
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