New dinosaur named after record-breaking sailor 19 hours ago Share Save Share Save PA/James Brown An artist's impression issued by the University of Portsmouth of an Istiorachis macarthurae A new species of dinosaur that had an "eye-catching sail" along its back has been named after sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur. The dinosaur, unearthed on the Isle of Wight, has been given the name Istiorachis macarthurae with the first word meaning "sail spine" and the second referring to Dame Ellen's surname. The record-breaking round-the-world yachtswoman said it was a "huge honour", adding: "The fact that the Istiorachis 'sail' could be likened to the sails I have spent so much of my life below was very touching. " After being analysed it has now been officially named and described by island-based scientist Jeremy Lockwood, and is now on display at Dinosaur Isle Museum in Sandown. PA/James Brown Jeremy Lockwood with the spinal column of an Istiorachis macaruthurae The medium-sized herbivore once roamed the floodplains of what is now the island's south-west coast. Its remains, which date back 125 million years, were originally discovered by fossil hunter Nick Chase, who died of cancer in 2019. Before Dr Lockwood's analysis the fossils were assumed to have belonged to one of the two known iguanodontian dinosaur species from the Isle of Wight. He said: "While the skeleton wasn't as complete as some of the others that have been found, no-one had really taken a close look at these bones before. "It was thought to be just another specimen of one of the existing species, but this one had particularly long neural spines, which was very unusual. "It may have been used for display, much like a peacock's feathers, possibly to attract mates or intimidate rivals. " For the study, researchers compared the fossilised bones with a database of similar dinosaur back bones which allowed them to see how these sail-like formations had evolved. EMCTrust Dame Ellen MacArthur, who is from Derbyshire, said it was "both extraordinary and a huge honour" to have the dinosaur named after her

Scientists make 'superfood' that could save honeybees 15 hours ago Share Save Georgina Rannard Climate and science correspondent Share Save Gwyndaf Hughes/BBC Scientists have developed a honeybee "superfood" that could protect the animals against the threats of climate change and habitat loss. Bee colonies that ate the supplement during trials had up to 15 times more baby bees that grew to adulthood. Honeybees are a vital part of food production and contribute to pollinating 70% of leading global crops. "This technological breakthrough provides all the nutrients bees need to survive, meaning we can continue to feed them even when there's not enough pollen," senior author Professor Geraldine Wright at the University of Oxford told BBC News. "It really is a huge accomplishment," she says. Gywndaf Hughes/BBC Honeybees globally are facing severe declines, due to nutrient deficiencies, viral diseases, climate change and other factors. In the US, annual colony losses have ranged between 40-50% in the last decade and are expected to increase. Beekeepers in the UK have faced serious challenges too. Nick Mensikov, chair of the Cardiff, Vale and Valleys Beekeepers Association, told BBC News that he lost 75% of his colonies last winter and that this has been seen across South Wales. "Although the hives have all been full of food, the bees have just dwindled. Most of the bees survived through January, February, and then they just vanished," he says. Gwyndaf Hughes/BBC Nick Mensikov has kept hives for 15 years and sells honey in South Wales Honeybees feed on pollen and nectar from flowers that contain the nutrients, including lipids called sterols that are necessary for their development. They make honey in hives, which becomes their food source over winter when flowers have stopped producing pollen. When beekeepers take out honey to sell, or, increasingly, when there isn't enough pollen available, they give the insects supplementary food. But that food is made up of protein flour, sugar and water, and has always lacked the nutrients bees require. It is like humans eating a diet without carbohydrates, amino acids, or other vital nutrients. Sterol has always proved very difficult to manufacture, but Prof Wright has led a group of scientists for 15 years to identify which exact sterols bees need and how to engineer them. Gwyndaf Hughes/BBC Professor Geraldine Wright was inspired to work on bee nutrition after beekeepers told her about how many of their bees were dying In the lab at Oxford, PhD student Jennifer Chennells showed us small clear boxes of honeybees in an incubator that she feeds with different foods she has made. She uses kitchen equipment you could find at home to make the raw ingredients, and rolls out glossy, white tubes of food. "We put ingredients into what's like a cookie dough, with different proteins, fats, different amounts of carbohydrate, and the micronutrients that bees need. It's to try to work out what they like best and what's best for them," she says. She pushes the tubes inside the boxes and bees nibble at the mixture. It's in this lab that, using gene editing, Prof Wright's team successfully made a yeast that can produce the six sterols that bees need. "It's a huge breakthrough. When my student was able to engineer the yeast to create the sterols, she sent me a picture of the chromatogram that was a result of the work," she says, referring to a chart of the substance structure. "I still have it on the wall of my office," she explains. See inside the hive that tested honeybee 'superfood' The "superfood" was fed to bees in the lab's hives for three months. The results showed that colonies fed the food had up to 15 times more baby bees that made it to adulthood. "When the bees have a complete nutrition they should be healthier and less susceptible to disease," Prof Wright says. Prof Wright says the food would be particularly useful during summers like this one when flowering plants appear to have stopped producing early. Gwyndaf Hughes/BBC Beekeepers often feed supplementary food to bees to sustain them

Work begins to create artificial human DNA from scratch 26 June 2025 Share Save Pallab Ghosh • @BBCPallab Science Correspondent Gwyndaf Hughes Science Videographer Share Save How the researchers hope to create human DNA Work has begun on a controversial project to create the building blocks of human life from scratch, in what is believed to be a world first. The research has been taboo until now because of concerns it could lead to designer babies or unforeseen changes for future generations. But now the World's largest medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, has given an initial £10m to start the project and says it has the potential to do more good than harm by accelerating treatments for many incurable diseases. Dr Julian Sale, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, who is part of the project, told BBC News the research was the next giant leap in biology. "The sky is the limit. We are looking at therapies that will improve people's lives as they age, that will lead to healthier aging with less disease as they get older. "We are looking to use this approach to generate disease-resistant cells we can use to repopulate damaged organs, for example in the liver and the heart, even the immune system," he said. But critics fear the research opens the way for unscrupulous researchers seeking to create enhanced or modified humans. Pat Thomas, director of the campaign group Beyond GM, said: "We like to think that all scientists are there to do good, but the science can be repurposed to do harm and for warfare". Details of the project were given to BBC News on the 25th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, which mapped the molecules in human DNA and was also largely funded by Wellcome. Getty Images Artwork: The aim is to build sections of human DNA from scratch Every cell in our body, with the exception of red blood cells, contains a molecule called DNA which carries the genetic information it needs. DNA is built from just four much smaller blocks referred to as A, G, C and T, which are repeated over and over again in various combinations. Amazingly it contains all the genetic information that physically makes us who we are. The Human Genome Project enabled scientists to read all human genes like a bar code. The new work that is getting under way, called the Synthetic Human Genome Project, potentially takes this a giant leap forward – it will allow researchers not just to read a molecule of DNA, but to create parts of it – maybe one day all of it - molecule by molecule from scratch. BBC News Scientists will begin developing tools to create ever larger sections of human DNA The scientists' first aim is to develop ways of building ever larger blocks of human DNA, up to the point when they have synthetically constructed a human chromosome. These contain the genes that govern our development, repair and maintenance. These can then be studied and experimented on to learn more about how genes and DNA regulate our bodies. Many diseases occur when these genes go wrong so the studies could lead to better treatments, according to Prof Matthew Hurles, director of the Wellcome Sanger Insititute which sequenced the largest proportion of the Human Genome. "Building DNA from scratch allows us to test out how DNA really works and test out new theories, because currently we can only really do that by tweaking DNA in DNA that already exists in living systems". BBC News Machines at the Sanger Institute were used to sequence the human genome

Will there be a drought where I live? 16 July 2025 Share Save Mark Poynting, Jess Carr and Phil Leake BBC Climate and Verify data journalism teams Share Save Getty Images Many reservoirs in northern England, like Lindley Wood in Yorkshire, have hit extremely low levels Millions of people in England are in regions hit by drought, and further parts of England are at risk of following if dry weather continues, the Environment Agency says. Parts of eastern Scotland and west Wales are also being closely monitored amid low water levels, according to the water companies there. So how is your area doing and how close are you to a drought? Here's a look at what's happening around the country, including our rain, rivers and reservoirs. What is a drought and is there a hosepipe ban in my region? There is no single definition of drought, but it is ultimately caused by a prolonged period of low rainfall, which has knock-on effects for nature, agriculture and water supplies. A decision to declare drought is taken based on an assessment of current water levels and long-term weather forecasts. It is a public sign that water companies might introduce restrictions on water use, such as hosepipe bans, if they aren't already in place. Areas with hosepipe ban areas don't exactly match drought declarations, because plans to manage water vary between regions. In England, the North West, Yorkshire, East Midlands and West Midlands are in drought, the Environment Agency says, as shown by the map below. Most of the rest of the England is in a status of prolonged dry weather, the category below drought. There are no official droughts currently in Northern Ireland or Wales, although Mid and South Ceredigion in west Wales are in "developing drought". Scotland does not declare droughts but monitors "water scarcity". Parts of eastern Scotland are in "moderate" scarcity – the second most extreme category – which means there is "clear" environmental impact. One of the driest springs on record The main reason for these droughts being declared is the long period of low rainfall. The UK had its sixth driest spring since records began in 1836. So there has been less moisture to top up our rivers, reservoirs and rocks below the ground. If that lack of rainfall continues for a long time, it can strain the water supplies that serve our homes and businesses. In June there was slightly more rainfall than average for the UK overall, but with a big difference between east and west. The start of July was drier than usual, but more changeable conditions are forecast for the rest of the month. Rainfall amounts over the coming months will play a key role in shaping which other regions enter drought, and how quickly. At the moment roughly average rainfall is expected between now and September, the Met Office says. Drier rivers for most of the UK That east-west divide in June rainfall is reflected in monitored river flows across the UK. At the end of last month, river flows in western Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and north-west and south-west England were generally around their normal levels, or even above. But river flows in many eastern, central and southern areas were about the same as - or even below - previous drought years of 1976, 2011, 2018 and 2022, said Lucy Barker, hydrologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH). Soils are also much drier than usual across large parts of the UK, particularly England, UKCEH data shows. Dry soils harm plant growth, hitting ecosystems and crop production. This dried-out vegetation also brings a higher risk of wildfires. Drier soils also warm up more quickly, which can amplify heatwaves. Exceptionally low reservoirs in north England Reservoirs are a crucial part of water supplies in northern England, Scotland and Wales. But England's reservoirs are at exceptionally low levels for the time of year in records going back more than 30 years. Reservoir levels in the North East and North West were near record lows for the end of June. The main reason for this is, of course, the lack of rain, but a small number of reservoirs can be affected by other factors. Normally at this time of year, Scottish reservoirs are 84% full. They are currently at 79%, according to Scottish Water. In Wales, most reservoirs are around normal, Welsh Water said. Reservoir levels are also about average in Northern Ireland, according to NI Water. A more mixed picture underground Much of south-east England relies more heavily on groundwater than reservoirs. Groundwater originates as rainfall and is naturally stored beneath the surface in the pore spaces and fractures in rocks. Rocks that store lots of groundwater are called aquifers. It accounts for a third of England's water supply, though this is much higher in the south and east. That is down to the UK's varied geology, which affects how much water can be stored in the ground. Water can flow more quickly through some rock types than others, sometimes taking years to respond to current conditions. This is the case for parts of south and east England, which is why these regions are currently closer to normal. These groundwater stores "respond more slowly to changes in the climate than rivers, which is why they provide a useful buffer during periods of drought," said Prof Alan MacDonald of the British Geological Survey. It is why groundwater droughts in the South generally take a longer time to develop but can be longer-lasting if they do occur. What are the consequences of the dry weather? People and nature are already feeling the effects. "It's quite shocking that we are still only [in early] July," Rachel Hallos, vice-president of the National Farmers' Union, told BBC News at the beginning of the month. "It's like it's the end of August when you look at the ground. " With this little rain, farmers have had to get water onto their crops using irrigation. That has made things more expensive for them and means there is even less water to go around. There is widespread concern about the months ahead, Mrs Hallos added. "What am I going to have to harvest? What am I going to have to feed my livestock over winter?" And then there is the impact on wildlife. A spokesman from the bird protection charity RSPB said that a big challenge has been making sure enough water is getting to key wetland habitats so that birds have safe places to nest. "We need to be thinking about making our sites more resilient to climate change, as these periods of prolonged dry weather become the norm. " And it's not just water-loving birds that are having a hard time. Even in our gardens, common visitors like blackbirds can struggle to find worms and insects on our parched lawns, the RSPB says. Is climate change to blame for drought? Droughts are complex phenomena, driven by a mix of natural and human causes. The Met Office expects the UK to experience drier summers on average in future as the world warms, though there has been no clear trend so far. But rising temperatures can play a more fundamental role by sapping moisture from the soil via evaporation. "A warmer atmosphere is thirstier for moisture and this can mean water in the soil, rivers and reservoirs are depleted more effectively, leading to more rapidly onsetting droughts, heatwaves and wildfires," said Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading. But there are other factors that determine whether dry conditions lead to water shortages, including how we use water. As part of plans to address water shortages, the government is planning nine new reservoirs for England by 2050, in addition to one under construction at Havant Thicket in Hampshire. But the Environment Agency has warned that measures to tackle water leaks and control water demand - potentially including hosepipe bans and more smart meters - may be needed in England too. Water companies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also said they were taking steps to secure future supplies. Additional reporting by Dan Wainwright, Christine Jeavans and Muskeen Liddar

Recent droughts are 'slow-moving global catastrophe' - UN report 2 July 2025 Share Save Tim Dodd Climate and science reporter Share Save Getty Images Record low water levels in the Amazon basin disrupted drinking water for thousands of people From Somalia to mainland Europe, the past two years have seen some of the most ravaging droughts in recorded history, made worse by climate change, according to a UN-backed report. Describing drought as a "silent killer" which "creeps in, drains resources, and devastates lives in slow motion" the report said it had exacerbated issues like poverty and ecosystem collapse. The report highlighted impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, including an estimated 4. 4 million people in Somalia facing crisis-level food insecurity at the beginning of this year. It recommends governments prepare for a "new normal" with measures including stronger early warning systems. "This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen," said co-author Dr Mark Svoboda, founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center. "This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on. " The Drought Hotspots Around the World report identifies the most severely impacted regions from 2023 to 2025. During this time, the warming effects of climate change were made worse by an El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that affects global weather patterns. An El Niño happens when surface waters in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm. It often leads to drier conditions in regions such as southern Africa, parts of south-east Asia, northern South America, and south-east Australia. Pressure from humans, for example the use of irrigation in agriculture, has also put a strain on water resources. Drought-linked hunger By January 2023, the worst drought in 70 years had hit the Horn of Africa, coming from years of failed rainy seasons in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. This followed the deaths of an estimated 43,000 people in Somalia in 2022 from drought-linked hunger. African wildlife was also affected, with hippos in Botswana stranded in dry riverbeds, and elephants culled in Zimbabwe and Namibia to feed hungry communities and prevent overgrazing. Getty Images In April 2024, herds of hippos became stuck in mud as Botswana's Thamalakane River dried up The report highlights how drought hits the world's most vulnerable people including women hardest, with often far-reaching impacts on society. Forced child marriages more than doubled in four regions of Eastern Africa hit hardest by drought, as families scrambled to secure dowries to survive, it noted. "The coping mechanisms we saw during this drought grew increasingly desperate," said lead author Paula Guastello. "Girls pulled from school and forced into marriage, hospitals going dark, and families digging holes in dry riverbeds just to find contaminated water - these are signs of severe crisis. " While low- to middle-income countries bore the brunt of the devastation, none could afford to be complacent, the report says, noting how two years of drought and record heat cut Spain's olive crop in half. In the Amazon basin, record low water levels killed fish and put endangered dolphins more at risk as well as hitting drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people. And drought even had an effect on world trade - between October 2023 and January 2024, water levels fell so much in the Panama Canal that daily ship transits dropped from 38 to 24. Getty Images Low water levels were seen outside the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal in November 2023 "Drought is not just a weather event – it can be a social, economic, and environmental emergency," said report co-author Dr Kelly Helm Smith. "The question is not whether this will happen again, but whether we will be better prepared next time

Ancient Egyptian history may be rewritten by DNA bone test 2 July 2025 Share Save Pallab Ghosh • @BBCPallab Science Correspondent Share Save Liverpool John Moores University. Nature Tests on the skull could give new insights into ancient history A DNA bone test on a man who lived 4,500 years ago in the Nile Valley has shed new light on the rise of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation. An analysis of his skeleton shows he was 60 years old and possibly worked as a potter, but also that a fifth of his DNA came from ancestors living 1,500km away in the other great civilisation of the time, in Mesopotamia or modern day Iraq. It is the first biological evidence of links between the two and could help explain how Egypt was transformed from a disparate collection of farming communities to one of the mightiest civilisations on Earth. The findings lend new weight to the view that writing and agriculture arose through the exchange of people and ideas between these two ancient worlds. Liverpool John Moores University/Nature The skeleton has revealed extraordinary details of the man's life The lead researcher, Prof Pontus Skoglund at the Francis Crick Institute in London, told BBC News that being able to extract and read DNA from ancient bones could shed new light on events and individuals from the past, allowing black and white historical facts to burst into life with technicolour details. "If we get more DNA information and put it side by side with what we know from archaeological, cultural, and written information we have from the time, it will be very exciting," he said. Our understanding of our past is drawn in part from written records, which is often an account by the rich and powerful, mostly about the rich and powerful. Biological methods are giving historians and scientists a new tool to view history through the eyes of ordinary people. The DNA was taken from a bone in the inner ear of remains of a man buried in Nuwayrat, a village 265km south of Cairo. He died between 4,500 and 4,800 years ago, a transformational moment in the emergence of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidence indicated that the two regions may have been in contact at least 10,000 years ago when people in Mesopotamia began to farm and domesticate animals, leading to the emergence of an agricultural society. Many scholars believe this social and technological revolution may have influenced similar developments in ancient Egypt – but there has been no direct evidence of contact, until now. Garstang Museum/Liverpool University/Nature The remains were discovered in 1902 in a ceramic pottery coffin Adeline Morez Jacobs, who analysed the remains as part of her PhD at Liverpool John Moores University, says this is the first clear-cut evidence of significant migration of people and therefore information between the two centres of civilisation at the time. "You have two regions developing the first writing systems, so archaeologists believe that they were in contact and exchanging ideas. Now we have the evidence that they were. "We hope that future DNA samples from ancient Egypt can expand on when precisely this movement from West Asia started and its extent. " The man was buried in a ceramic pot in a tomb cut into the hillside. His burial took place before artificial mummification was standard practice, which may have helped to preserve his DNA. By investigating chemicals in his teeth, the research team were able to discern what he ate, and from that, determined that he had probably grown up in Egypt. But the scientific detective story doesn't stop there. The Metropolitan Museum of Art A pictogram in the tomb of Amenemhat near Nuwayrat shows how potters worked

Tiny creatures gorge, get fat, and help fight global warming 4 July 2025 Share Save Georgina Rannard Climate and science correspondent Share Save Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton A tiny, obscure animal often sold as aquarium food has been quietly protecting our planet from global warming by undertaking an epic migration, according to new research. These "unsung heroes" called zooplankton gorge themselves and grow fat in spring before sinking hundreds of metres into the deep ocean in Antarctica where they burn the fat. This locks away as much planet-warming carbon as the annual emissions of roughly 55 million petrol cars, stopping it from further warming our atmosphere, according to researchers. This is much more than scientists expected. But just as researchers uncover this service to our planet, threats to the zooplankton are growing. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton Female copepods (4mm) with cigar-shaped fat stores in their bodies Scientists have spent years probing the animal's annual migration in Antarctic waters, or the Southern Ocean, and what it means for climate change. The findings are "remarkable", says lead author Dr Guang Yang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, adding that it forces a re-think about how much carbon the Southern Ocean stores. "The animals are an unsung hero because they have such a cool way of life," says co-author Dr Jennifer Freer from British Antarctic Survey. But compared to the most popular Antarctic animals like the whale or penguin, the small but mighty zooplankton are overlooked and under-appreciated. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton This copepod has hair-like arms for feeding If anyone has heard of them, it's probably as a type of fish food available to buy online. But their life cycle is odd and fascinating. Take the copepod, a type of zooplankton that is a distant relative of crabs and lobsters. Just 1-10mm in size, they spend most of their lives asleep between 500m to 2km deep in the ocean. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton Sacs of fat, or lipids, form in Southern Ocean copepods' bodies and heads after they eat phytoplankton (the green material in the bodies in this image) In pictures taken under a microscope, you can see long sausages of fat inside their bodies, and fat bubbles in their heads, explains Prof Daniel Mayor who photographed them in Antarctica. Without them, our planet's atmosphere would be significantly warmer. Globally the oceans have absorbed 90% of the excess heat humans have created by burning fossil fuels. Of that figure, the Southern Ocean is responsible for about 40%, and a lot of that is down to zooplankton. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton Millions of pounds is being spent globally to understand how exactly they store carbon. Scientists were already aware that the zooplankton contributed to carbon storage in a daily process when the animals carbon-rich waste sinks to the deep ocean. But what happened when the animals migrate in the Southern Ocean had not been quantified. The latest research focussed on copepods, as well as other types of zooplankton called krill, and salps. The creatures eat phytoplankton on the ocean surface which grow by transforming carbon dioxide into living matter through photosynthesis. This turns into fat in the zooplankton. "Their fat is like a battery pack. When they spend the winter deep in the ocean, they just sit and slowly burn off this fat or carbon," explains Prof Daniel Mayor at University of Exeter, who was not part of the study. "This releases carbon dioxide. Because of the way the oceans work, if you put carbon really deep down, it takes decades or even centuries for that CO2 to come out and contribute to atmospheric warming," he says. Jennifer Freer Dr Jennifer Freer analysed the zooplankton on board the Sir David Attenborough polar ship The research team calculated that this process - called the seasonal vertical migration pump - transports 65 million tonnes of carbon annually to at least 500m below the ocean surface. Of that, it found that copepods contribute the most, followed by krill and salps. That is roughly equivalent to the emissions from driving 55 million diesel cars for a year, according to a greenhouse gas emissions calculator by the US EPA. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton Plankton sampling often happens at midnight when the animals are closest to the ocean surface. The latest research looked at data stretching back to the 1920s to quantify this carbon storage, also called carbon sequestration. But the scientific discovery is ongoing as researchers seek to understand more details about the migration cycle. Earlier this year, Dr Freer and Prof Mayor spent two months on the Sir David Attenborough polar research ship near the South Orkney island and South Georgia. Using large nets the scientists caught zooplankton and brought the animals onboard. "We worked in complete darkness under red light so we didn't disturb them," says Dr Freer. "Others worked in rooms kept at 3-4C. You wear a lot of protection to stay there for hours at a time looking down the microscope," she adds. Prof Daniel J Mayor @oceanplankton Antarctic krill (50-60mm) with green guts showing they've recently eaten algae But warming waters as well as commercial harvesting of krill could threaten the future of zooplankton. "Climate change, disturbance to ocean layers and extreme weather are all threats," explains co-author Prof Angus Atkinson from Plymouth Marine Laboratory. This could reduce the amount of zooplankton in Antarctica and limit the carbon stored in the deep ocean. Krill fishing companies harvested almost half a million tonnes of krill in 2020, according to the UN. It is permitted under international law, but has been criticised by environmental campaigners including in the recent David Attenborough Ocean documentary. The scientists say their new findings should be incorporated into climate models that forecast how much our planet will warm. "If this biological pump didn't exist, atmospheric CO2 levels would be roughly twice those as they are at the moment. So the oceans are doing a pretty good job of mopping up CO2 and getting rid of it," explains Prof Atkinson. The research is published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography

5m year-old ice to be melted to unlock mystery 18 July 2025 Share Save Georgina Rannard Climate and science correspondent Reporting from British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge Share Save PNRA/IPEV The end of the ice cores are a 1. 5 million year or even older time capsule An ice core that may be older than 1. 5 million years has arrived in the UK where scientists will melt it to unlock vital information about Earth's climate. The glassy cylinder is the planet's oldest ice and was drilled from deep inside the Antarctic ice sheet. Frozen inside is thousands of years of new information that scientists say could "revolutionise" what we know about climate change. BBC News went inside the -23C freezer room at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to see the precious boxes of ice. PNRA/IPEV The cores were stored in an ice cave in Antarctica before being loaded onto a boat for Europe "This is a completely unknown period of our Earth's history," says Dr Liz Thomas, head of ice core research at the British Antarctic Survey. Red warning lights flash above the door, and inside there is an emergency escape hatch into a tunnel in case something goes wrong. The rules say we could only go inside for 15 minutes at a time, wearing padded overalls, boots, hats and gloves. Our camera's electronic shutter froze shut and our hair started to crackle as it turned icy. On a worktop next to stacked boxes of ice, Dr Thomas points out the oldest cores that could be 1. They shine and are so clear we can see our hands through them. BBC News Dr Liz Thomas will lead a team analysing the ice cores at British Antarctic Survey For seven weeks, the team will slowly melt the hard-won ice, releasing ancient dust, volcanic ash, and even tiny marine algae called diatoms that were locked inside when water turned to ice. These materials can tell scientists about wind patterns, temperature, and sea levels more than a million years ago. Tubes will feed the liquid into machines in a lab next door that is one of the only places in the world that can do this science. BBC News The boxes of ice in Cambridge will be slowly melted over seven weeks It was a huge multinational effort to extract the ice cores in Antarctica, at a cost of millions. The ice was chopped into 1m blocks and transported by ship and then in a cold van to Cambridge. Engineer James Veale helped to extract the ice close to the Concordia base in eastern Antarctica. "To hold that in my carefully gloved hands and be very careful not to drop the sections - it was an amazing feeling," he says. 8km of ice was extracted - more than eight Eiffel Towers stacked end-to-end Two institutions in Germany and Switzerland also have received cross-sections of the 2. The teams could find evidence of a period of time more than 800,000 years ago when carbon dioxide concentrations may have been naturally as high or even higher than they are now, according to Dr Thomas. This could help them understand what will happen in our future as our planet responds to warming gases trapped in our atmosphere. PNRA/IPEV The drilling took place about 40km from the Italian-French research station Concordia "Our climate system has been through so many different changes that we really need to be able to go back in time to understand these different processes and different tipping points," she says. The difference between today and previous eras with high greenhouse gases is that now humans have caused the rapid rise in warming gases in the last 150 years. That is taking us into unchartered territory, but the scientists hope that the record of our planet's environmental history locked in the ice could give us some guidance. The team will identify chemical isotopes in the liquid that could tell us the wind patterns, temperatures, and rainfall for a period of time between 800,000 and up to 1. 5 million years ago or possibly more. They will use an instrument called an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS) to measure over 20 elements and trace metals. That includes rare earth elements, sea salts and marine elements, as well as indicators of past volcanic eruptions. The work will help scientists understand a mysterious change called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition 800,000 to 1. 2 million years ago when the planet's glacial cycles suddenly changed. BBC News James Veale was part of the team in Antarctica that drilled and extracted the ice over four seasons

Thousands of river pollution tests cancelled because of staff shortages 24 July 2025 Share Save Jonah Fisher BBC environment correspondent Share Save Jonah Fisher/BBC Between May and July 2025 10,000 tests for water pollution at the Environment Agency's Starcross laboratory in Devon were cancelled Thousands of water tests to identify potential harmful pollution in rivers, lakes and estuaries in England have been cancelled in the last three months due to staff shortages, the BBC has learned. The Environment Agency confirmed the cancellations after campaigners showed us internal emails and documents with plans for extensive cuts to monitoring programmes. The cancelled tests are for so-called inorganic pollutants - substances such as nitrates and phosphates that can indicate sewage or agricultural pollution. The EA says its testing programme "remains robust" but this week a landmark report said it had "struggled to effectively oversee and manage the water system". In the three months from May to July the water regulator says that 10,000 scheduled tests at its main laboratory at Starcross in Devon did not take place due to staff shortages. Others were combined with other tests or postponed in what the EA says was an "optimisation" process. The Environment Agency said seven national inorganic testing programmes had been completely "paused". They include programmes that track chemical pollution in rivers, lakes and estuaries as well as one that monitors the regulator's plans for dealing with drought. Jo Bradley, who worked at the Environment Agency's water quality team for more than 20 years, told the BBC: "Some inorganic substances, such as copper and zinc, are directly toxic to aquatic organisms, including fish and insects," "Others, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, are nutrients and they can affect river health when they are present in high quantities. "These substances must be tested routinely, at many hundreds of locations, so that we can see trends in river chemistry and quickly identify problems. " The EA said it "paused" 17. 5% of its inorganic testing at the Starcross Laboratory from May to July. Over the entire year it said it was expecting to operate at 15% below capacity. A spokesperson blamed the reduction in tests on "fluctuations in staffing capacity" and said the laboratory would be working at full capacity again by October. Staffing problems are nothing new at the EA. In 2023 its chairman Alan Lovell told parliament that it had "struggled with recruitment and retention of staff". Internal emails obtained by campaign groups Greenpeace and Desmog through freedom of information requests were shared with the BBC. They show EA officials discussing the impact of staff departures on testing and saying that others planned to leave. One senior official, writing an email to her colleagues, said it was "not good news I'm afraid" adding "this isn't where we want to be (again)". Helen Nightingale, who worked at the Environment Agency as a catchment planner, analysing data from its water quality programme until 2022, says that while she was there she saw a shift of focus away from serious investigation to trying to find "successes". She also said that morale was low: "The pay is not great – we didn't have pay rises for years due to austerity, "But a lot people are in it [the EA] because they want to make a difference – and when you're not even getting that - well, what's the point?" Documents seen by the BBC show that the work affected by the cuts to testing this year included investigations into the water industry in various parts of the country, and monitoring of protected areas including the River Wye, which is currently facing a pollution crisis linked to intensive chicken farming. Stuart Singleton White from the Angling Trust which has been running its own citizen scientist testing programme. , said: "This spring, while the EA cut 10,000 water samples, our Water Quality Monitoring Network collected its 10,000th. "Our latest annual report showed that 34% of sites breached "good ecological status" for phosphate, and 45% showed signs of nitrate pollution. Pollution is out of control, and extensive testing is key to addressing the problem. " Singer-turned-campaigner Feargal Sharkey said the cancelled tests are further confirmation of the EA's limitations. "When is a regulator not a regulator? When it's the Environment Agency," Mr Sharkey told the BBC. "With impeccable timing the Environment Agency reminds us all of exactly why they to should be added to Sir Jon Cunliffe's bonfire of the quangos [the Water Commission]. Institutionally incompetent, complacent and discredited. " This week, Sir Jon recommended that a single water regulator be created, with the EA handing over responsibility for monitoring water pollution

Why did Russian mega earthquake not cause more tsunami damage? 30 July 2025 Share Save Esme Stallard and Mark Poynting BBC News Climate and Science Share Save It has been one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded – but so far has not brought the catastrophic tsunami that many feared. 8-magnitude quake struck eastern Russia at 11:25 local time on Wednesday (00:25 BST), it raised concerns for coastal populations across the Pacific. Millions of people were evacuated, as minds cast back to the devastating tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011, both triggered by similarly large earthquakes. But today's tsunami has been much less severe, even though it's brought some damage. So what caused the earthquake and tsunami – and why wasn't it as bad as initially feared? What causes a mega earthquake? The Kamchatka Peninsula is remote but lies in the "Pacific Ring of Fire" - so called because of the high number of earthquakes and volcanoes that occur here. The upper layers of the Earth are split into sections – tectonic plates – which are all moving relative to one another. The "Pacific Ring of Fire" is an arc of these plates that extends around the Pacific. Eighty percent of the world's earthquakes occur along the ring, according to the British Geological Survey. Just off the coast of the Peninsula, the Pacific plate is moving north-west at about 8cm (3in) per year - only about twice the rate that your fingernails grow, but fast by tectonic standards. There it comes into contact with another, smaller plate - called the Okhotsk microplate. The Pacific plate is oceanic, which means it has dense rocks and wants to sink beneath the less dense microplate. As the Pacific plate sinks towards the centre of the Earth, it heats up and begins to melt, effectively disappearing. But this process is not always smooth. Often the plates can get stuck as they move past each other and the overriding plate is dragged downwards. This friction can build up over thousands of years, but can then be suddenly released in just a couple of minutes. This is known as a megathrust earthquake. "When we typically think about earthquakes, we imagine an epicentre as a small point on a map. However, for such large earthquakes, the fault will have ruptured over many hundreds of kilometres," explained Dr Stephen Hicks, lecturer in environmental seismology at University College London. "It is this vast amount of slip and area of the fault that generates such a high earthquake magnitude. " The largest earthquakes recorded in history, including the three strongest in Chile, Alaska and Sumatra, were all megathrust earthquakes. And the Kamchatka Peninsula is prone to strong quakes. In fact, another high magnitude 9. 0 earthquake struck less than 30km (19mi) from today's earthquake in 1952, the US Geological Survey says. Why wasn't this as bad as previous tsunamis? This sudden movement can displace water above the plates, which can then travel to the coastline as tsunami. In the deep ocean, tsunami can travel at more than 500mph (800km/h), about as fast as a passenger aeroplane. Here, the distance between waves is very long and the waves aren't very high – rarely more than a metre. But as a tsunami enters shallow water near land, it slows down, often to about 20-30mph. The distance between waves shortens, and waves grow in height, which can effectively create a wall of water near the coast. But it's by no means guaranteed that a very strong earthquake will lead to a particularly tall tsunami reaching far inland. Today's quake brought tsunami waves of 4m (13ft) in parts of eastern Russia, according to authorities there. But they don't come close to the waves tens-of-metres high of Boxing Day 2004 in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011. "The height of the tsunami wave is also affected by local shapes of the seafloor near the coast and the [shape] of the land where it arrives," said Prof Lisa McNeill, professor of tectonics at the University of Southampton. "These factors, along with how populated the coast is, affect how serious the impact is," she added. Initial reports from the US Geological Survey said that the earthquake was centred at quite a narrow depth, about 20. 9 miles) below the Earth's surface. That can lead to greater displacement of the seafloor, and therefore a bigger tsunami wave, but it's hard to tell for sure so soon after the event. "One possibility is that the tsunami models have maybe taken a conservative estimate on the earthquake depth," Dr Hicks told BBC News. "Potentially you could shift that earthquake another 20 kilometres deeper, and that would actually reduce the amplitude of the tsunami waves quite considerably. " Philip FONG/AFP/Getty Images More than 1. 9 million Japanese residents were ordered to evacuate to higher ground following the earthquake Better early warning systems Another important element is the development of early warning systems. Due to the high occurrence of earthquakes in the Pacific region, many countries have tsunami centres. They send out warnings via public announcements for populations to evacuate. No such system was in place when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami occurred - leaving many people without time to evacuate. More than 230,000 people died across 14 countries in the Indian Ocean. Early warning systems are important because of the limited ability of scientists to predict when an earthquake will occur. The US Geological Survey recorded an earthquake measuring 7. 4 in the same region ten days before. This may have been a foreshock - an early release of energy - but it is not a predictor of exact timing of a future earthquake, explained Prof McNeill. "Although we can use how fast the plates are moving, GPS to measure current movements and when previous earthquakes occurred, we can only use this information to make forecasts of probability of an earthquake," she said. The Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GS RAS) will continue to monitor the region as it anticipates aftershocks could continue for the next month