For the first time, we calculated Australia’s share of planetary environmental boundaries and found we’ve shot past three already.
Wildfire smoke contains a mixture of toxic pollutants that can be harmful to both the lungs and the brain.
Bloomberg Creative/ Bloomberg Creative Photos via Getty Images
Pollution from more frequent floods and wildfires – exacerbated by the warming climate – is threatening human health and poses particular risks to the brain.
Puddles in the bed of the Darling River are a sign of an ecosystem in crisis.
Jeremy Buckingham/Flickr
Hundreds of thousands of fish have died in low-oxygen water. Here’s what actually happened to the oxygen, and why we might see more deaths in the coming weeks.
An aerial photo of a 2009 algae bloom in the Murray Darling Basin.
MINISTER PHIL COSTA'S OFFICE/AAP
Did you recently hear news that Earth’s oldest pigments were hot pink? That’s not quite right. When they were in living bacteria a billion years ago, they were performing photosynthesis – and green.
Detail from a satellite photo of Lake Okeechobee’s algae bloom and the St. Lucie canal into which water was released. Rising water levels from heavy winter rains had water managers worried that water would breach the dike.
NASA
Toxic algal blooms were unheard of in Australia’s major waterways before 1991. Now the Murray River has been struck by four major events in less than a decade, with more likely in the future.
Blue-green algae blooms are increasing in size and frequency as global temperatures rise.
For the first time, researchers have shown that feeding vervet monkeys a toxin produced by blue-green algae resulted in protein deposits in the brain, consistent with those seen in human Alzheimer’s.
Pretty, but also pretty nasty.
Willem van Aken/CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons
With El Niño ramping up, Australia is in for a long, hot, dry summer - perfect conditions for blue-green algae. And that innocuous-looking pond scum can pack a toxic punch if you’re not careful.
Enormous algal blooms off Cornwall, which can lead to low oxygen waters.
NASA
The world’s oceans are plagued with the problem of “dead zones”, areas of high nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) in which plankton blooms cause a major reduction of oxygen levels in the water…
Pretty but deadly: researchers now understand how blue-green algae is linked to neurodegenerative diseases.
Mark Sadowski
Scientists have known for some time now that exposure to blue-green algae is linked to increased incidence of several neurodegenerative diseases. But the reason for the link has been a mystery until now…