Post of the Day
Australian Murray River habitat restoration increases native fish populations
Dubbed the ‘honeypot effect’ — a team of scientists from around Australia have shown that providing woody habitat, or ‘snags,’ for native fish in the Murray River increases their population size.
Today’s Celebration
Day of Beauty & Maternity – Armenia
Genocide Remembrance Day – Rwanda
Toussaint L’Ouverture Day – Haiti
Women’s Day – Mozambique
Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume Day – Tanzania
People’s April Revolution Day – Kyrgyzstan
National Flag Day – Slovenia
A Drop of Water Is a Grain of Gold Holiday – Turkmenistan
Annunciation – Eastern Christianity
National
Australia’s best national parks to explore during the school holidays
Australia is home to more than 500 national parks — here’s our audience’s favourite areas to explore because of their natural beauty and cultural significance.
Parliament must back Labor’s climate policy if party wins power, Mark Butler says
Shadow climate change minister reiterates opposition to Adani mine, saying no ‘case for opening up new thermal coal mine’
Will Labor’s climate change policy work? – Australian politics live podcast
With Labor’s climate change policy now released and an election inching ever closer, Katharine Murphy talks with the shadow minister for climate change and energy, Mark Butler, about the policy and its role in the campaign.
Electric vehicles an opportunity for local government
Local councils could save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shifting their fleets to electric vehicles, a study by ClimateWorks Australia suggests.
Australian Murray River habitat restoration increases native fish populations
Dubbed the ‘honeypot effect’ — a team of scientists from around Australia have shown that providing woody habitat, or ‘snags,’ for native fish in the Murray River increases their population size.
Victoria
Fire officer says shiver went down his spine when he heard location of Campbellfield fire
A senior fire officer says authorities were aware of the risks associated with a waste storage and disposal facility in Melbourne’s north where a massive industrial fire broke out on Friday, spewing thick black smoke over the suburbs.
Explainer: Confused by the Melbourne train disruptions? Here’s what you need to know
Getting to work and the footy might take a little longer in Melbourne this month, as massive infrastructure upgrades cause widespread disruption to train services. Here’s what you need to know.
Trees added to Vic North East Link plans
Victoria’s government aims to plant 30,000 trees as part of its North East Link toll road plans – planting two trees for every one removed in the project.
Snakes scarier than spiders, sharks: poll
Almost half of Australian adults polled on their fears nominate snakes and spiders as a bigger fear than sharks, heights, cybercrime and the dentist.
The cars ate Melbourne and there’s many a sad price to pay
Catherine Ford
I live in Melbourne’s inner city, in a small street parallel to the largest arterial road connecting the CBD to CityLink’s western edge. In the middle of the day, our street has so little traffic you could cross it using your ears more than your eyes, but during the morning and evening peaks you need to use every sense available to you to stay alive should you need to go anywhere.
New South Wales
Unlikely alliance aims to protect, promote Garden of Stone’s ‘3000 sisters’
Environmental groups and an underground coal miner has formed to promote tourism to the beautiful rock formations of the Gardens of Stone near Lithgow.
‘Sat on its hands’: New environment minister has a long to-do list
The Berejiklian government’s new planning cluster has inherited a range of unfinished work on the environment from climate action to marine parks, some of it delayed for as long as a decade.
Manly ferries are to Sydney what cable cars are to San Francisco
Helen Pitt
May Gibbs would be horrified at the news that the Freshwater-class Manly ferries could soon set sail to Circular Quay for the final time.
Public spaces for the public good
SMH editorial
We have long had ministers for planning, of course, but not public spaces. It’s easy to imagine that in this capacity, Dr Stokes will have a full appointments book in a city where every morsel of space is becoming more and more contested.
ACT
‘Not a pipedream’: Government urged to keep eye on potential hyperloop
A parliamentary committee has urged the federal government to keep a close eye on the development of a futuristic technology that could make it possible for Canberrans to travel to the capital cities of four Australian states within an hour.
Queensland
New lord mayor keeps ‘open mind’ on Mt Coot-tha zipline
The controversial council development project is currently stuck in court.
Great Barrier Reef: Sky News and Peter Ridd are deliberately misleading
Graham Readfearn
According to misinformation from sources such as Sky News and scientist Peter Ridd, the Great Barrier Reef is in perfect health.
Tasmania
Improving amenities at Freycinet National Park with new Wineglass Bay toilet block
Freycinet National Park will receive an amenity boost with the addition of a new toilet facility at the northern end of Wineglass Bay.
Northern Territory
Gas company spots new population of critically endangered shark as it prepares to build pipeline
The critically endangered shark was spotted by gas-giant ConocoPhillips during preparations for its new Barossa gas pipeline. But now an environmental group says it should study the project’s impacts on the shark before proceeding.
Western Australia
To save the bilby, these traditional owners and scientists have to work together
Can you spot a footprint? A poo? A burrow? In the middle of Western Australia, scientists and Indigenous rangers are searching for a trace of a bilby. They’re like a search-and-rescue line, but for the environment.
Sustainability
Getting to the bottom of the ‘boiling crisis’
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere review how a ‘boiling crisis’ can occur in environments such as nuclear power plants. The findings may lead to better designs of heat-transfer surfaces and might allow plants to generate more power with the same amount of fuel.
Reflective roofs can reduce overheating in cities and save lives during heatwaves
A new modeling study from the University of Oxford and collaborators has estimated how changing the reflectivity of roofs can help keep cities cooler during heatwaves and reduce heat-rated mortality rates.
Mystery of negative capacitance in perovskite solar cells solved
EPFL scientists reveal the origin of apparently high and even negative capacitance values observed in perovskite solar cells.
India’s top 10 states by installed solar power capacity
The government of India has already set an ambitious target to achieve 100 gigawatt by 2022
Saudi plans to invite bids for nuclear power project in 2020: Sources
The world’s top oil exporter wants to diversify its energy mix, adding nuclear power so it can free up more crude for export
Nature Conservation
The carbon offset market: Leveraging forest carbon’s value in the Brazilian Amazon
As companies seek and are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s carbon markets are expanding. A government-run program in the Amazon rainforest in northwestern Brazil transforms forest carbon value into public wealth by focusing on labor rather than land rights.
Science-based guidelines for building a bee-friendly landscape
Many resources encourage homeowners and land care managers to create bee-friendly environments, but most of them include lists of recommended plants rarely backed by science. To rectify this, Dr. Daniel Potter surveyed 72 native and non-native woody plant species in five sample sites throughout the Ohio Valley region to document which species attract which bees.
Rainforest Conservation in Peru Must Become More Effective
A few years ago, the Peruvian government launched a program to protect the rainforest. However, an analysis shows that its effect is small.
Now for something completely different …
Not even trying to remember passwords is the best strategy there is
Richard Castles
Before I do anything online, I just hit “forgot password”, and reset it. It gives you a moment to reflect and think of nicer things.
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