The word ‘probably’ will haunt this fish for the rest of its days – a deflating description for a cute, toxic creature
Pufferfish are cute, and most pufferfish are toxic. Like people, they spend their weeks moving between states of puffed up and deflated. Or, really, three states: normal, puffed up and then the hangover after the puffing up. Ironically, the pufferfish toxin, called tetrodotoxin, is deadly because it stops a person’s diaphragm from moving – in other words, it stops you from being able to puff yourself up. And you could see that as a lesson for wanting to eat them in the first place.
You’re wondering what is inside a blown-up pufferfish, how they inflate. Firstly: it is not air, or else they would pop up and out of the water like a balloon in a swimming pool. Also, air is hard to come by down there. They turn themselves into absurd-looking spherical objects by sucking water – something called, grossly, “buccal pumping” – into their extremely elastic stomachs. They don’t have ribs, which helps. This gives predators a fright – but perhaps more to the point, large spheres are hard to swallow.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/02/2024 - 09:00
Readers led to believe a short-on-facts advertorial exhorting government to let companies extract more gas is straight news coverage
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The big news on Monday morning was that the story splashed across the front of News Corp’s biggest-selling tabloid newspapers wasn’t news at all. It was an advertorial paid for by a fossil fuel industry. Not that readers glancing at page one of the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier-Mail or Adelaide Advertiser were let in on this secret.
Instead, they were sold a lie – that the story was straight news coverage, in some cases described as an “exclusive” or a “special report”, on how (in the words of the Courier-Mail) Australia must “step on the gas” as it was the “only way to avoid higher bills, blackouts”.
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12/02/2024 - 09:00
Researchers at ANU found no real difference between the climate opinions of regional and urban Australians. Remember that as we head into the next federal election, with renewable energy on the frontline
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I have many heritages: Chinese, Irish, Anglo and Japanese among them. I am a journalist. I grew up in the city but have lived in the country for 30 years. How should I define my identity?
Rural life has colonised my writing life. But I would hazard a guess I am not fully accepted as rural in many circles. I am certainly not the mythical bush person of legend.
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12/02/2024 - 07:35
Small Socialist Left party threatens to block budget if government becomes first to issue licences for deep-sea exploration
The Norwegian government has paused its plans to mine the deep sea in the Arctic, after pressure from a small leftwing party.
The agreement was reached after the Socialist Left (SV) party said it would not support the government’s budget unless it halted the first round of licences for deep-sea mining exploration, planned for the first half of 2025.
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12/02/2024 - 07:00
With Biden soon to leave the White House, Republicans start an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency
Donald Trump’s allies have fired the opening salvoes of his coming administration’s attack on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency that enforces and regulates laws on air, soil, and water quality among other crucial environmental and health issues.
In a letter from Republican House leadership to the EPA administrator Michael Regan, Republicans trained their sights on the agency’s scientific integrity policies that are designed to insulate scientists and research from political interference.
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12/02/2024 - 06:59
Vanuatu envoy makes claim as landmark hearing gets under way at international court of justice in The Hague
A handful of countries should be held legally responsible for the ongoing impacts of climate change, representatives of vulnerable nations have told judges at the international court of justice (ICJ).
During a landmark hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which began on Monday, Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, said responsibility for the climate crisis lay squarely with “a handful of readily identifiable states” that had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from the impacts.
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12/02/2024 - 05:33
Group of 85 countries and blocs press for ambition in plastic waste treaty after no agreement was reached in Busan
Binding global targets to cut plastic production must be at the centre of any continuing negotiations to secure the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic waste, a group of 85 countries has said.
Talks in Busan, South Korea, attempting to secure agreement between more than 200 countries on the details of a plastic pollution treaty ended in failure over the weekend.
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12/02/2024 - 04:04
An ambitious multi-part project will transform seven miles of seabed into an artistic destination with a cautionary message
Over the next few years, coastal waters just off of Miami Beach will be transformed by The ReefLine, an ambitious new project that aims to occupy seven miles of seabed within shouting distance of the sands. The ReefLine aims to one day create an enormous, art-studded underwater playland, including a sculpture park, snorkel trail and hybrid reef.
One of the first pieces of this project, Miami Reef Star – a gigantic 90ft star that will eventually be visible to landing aircraft descending over the waters – will be on exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach. Set up in prototype on Miami Beach itself, it will be a part of Star Compass, a series of three large-scale installations curated by Ximena Caminos and Dodie Kazanjian. In addition to Reef Star, Star Compass will also include The Great Elephant Migration, a work consisting of 100 life-sized sculptures of elephants, and Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, which will stage an enormous sailboat race.
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12/02/2024 - 04:00
Move to exclude fossil fuel firms from investment portfolios follows years of campaigning by staff and students
More than three-quarters of UK universities have pledged to exclude fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios, according to campaigners.
The move, which is part of a wider drive to limit investment in fossil fuels, follows years of campaigning by staff and students across the higher education sector.
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12/02/2024 - 02:00
Bringing back the long-vanished bird to the UK was hailed as a conservation triumph. Then farmers started finding the corpses of their prized livestock
Photographs by Murdo MacLeod
Two spinal columns, a dozen ribs and a hollowed-out head lie next to a peak called “rock of the eagle” in Gaelic. These are the remains of a pair of three-month-old lambs. It’s muggy, and maggots and foxes will make light work of the remaining skin and bone. In a few weeks, it’ll be as if it never happened.
Ruaridh MacKay, who has been farming here at Stronmagachan Farm in Inveraray for 25 years, picks up one of the spines: sodden and slimy from successive fronts of rain, every morsel of flesh has been excavated. He was expecting to take these lambs to market next month.
Mackay says the mysterious deaths started about 12 years ago
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