Whale first photographed off the coast of Brazil in 2003 spotted off north-east Australia in September 2025

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A humpback whale has made a 15,000km journey from Brazil to Australia, marking what researchers believe is the longest distance ever documented between sightings of an individual humpback.

The whale was first photographed in 2003 at the Abrolhos Bank, Brazil’s main humpback whale nursery, off the coast of the north-eastern state of Bahia. In September 2025, it was spotted again in Hervey Bay off the Queensland coast, representing a travel distance of about 15,100km.

Divers are installing waterproof speakers in the ocean to help pull a coral reef near Jamaica back from the brink

The northern coast of Jamaica once served as the backdrop for scenes in the James Bond thriller No Time to Die. But today, beneath those same turquoise waves, a real-life mission is unfolding: the race to pull a dying coral reef back from the brink.

However, the tools a team of divers are carrying to the seafloor are not what you would expect to find in a marine biologist’s kit. They are installing waterproof speakers at the bottom of the ocean, and the man leading the team is not a scientist.

Researchers examined trends in 10 global cities, with Sydney’s summer growing at two-and-a-half times the average

Scientist Ted Scott could feel that summers in his home state of Minnesota were not what they used to be.

With the climate crisis accelerating, Scott could feel and see the seasons changing from their usual patterns – especially summer – and he wanted to know what the data said.

Analysis of six extreme heatwaves found when temperature and humidity were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people

Extreme heat is already creating “non-survivable” conditions for humans in heatwaves that have killed thousands and likely many more, according to new research that warns people are more susceptible to rising temperatures than first thought.

Scientists re-examined six extreme heatwaves between 2003 and 2024 and found that when temperature, humidity and the body’s ability to stay cool were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people.

Water shortages and rising heat is putting pressure on beer ingredients, but US brewers and farmers are adapting

With St Patrick’s Day this week, millions of Americans are raising a glass. Beer remains the country’s most popular alcoholic drink with more than 6bn gallons consumed each year. But from water shortages to rising temperatures, the climate crisis is putting pressure on beer’s most essential ingredients.

At Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, beer is either stacked high in warehouse rows or racing down a canning line and assembled into 12-packs. Inside the cavernous cellars, enormous 6,000-gallon tanks hold the latest batches in progress.

Proposal to replant inside a different type of protected woodland would not replicate diversity of cleared sites used by threatened cockatoo species, conservationists say

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Property developers in Perth plan to bulldoze an endangered banksia ecosystem used by threatened black cockatoo species, and conservationists have warned the damage cannot be mitigated by proposed offsets.

The developers want to replant the banksia ecosystem within a different type of protected woodland – a proposal that a leading botanist said was doomed to fail.

Legal bid by shareholder advocacy group over alleged misleading ‘net zero’ and ‘clean energy’ claims fails

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Gas company Santos has successfully defended a landmark greenwashing case in which it was accused of making misleading claims about its net zero plans and being a producer of “clean” energy.

In a blow for climate activists, the federal court on Tuesday dismissed the case brought by the shareholder advocacy group the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR).

Researchers dig ‘spas’ and install ‘saunas’ in ACT wetlands to give green and golden bell frogs the best chance of survival

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Scientists have reintroduced green and golden bell frogs to the Australian Capital Territory for the first time since the species became locally extinct four decades ago.

The first cohort of 25 frogs was released on Tuesday morning, a milestone for conservation of the animals, whose numbers have been devastated by the chytrid fungal disease that has wiped out 90 amphibian species in 50 years.

Queensland government says it has already killed six of the 10 dingoes seen near the body of 19-year-old Piper James

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Dingo experts have said a decision to kill a 10-strong pack of the animals linked with the death of Canadian tourist Piper James on K’gari could push the island’s population towards extinction while doing little to protect humans.

The Queensland government revealed on Sunday it had already killed six of the pack seen around the body of the 19-year-old in a move that has angered the island’s traditional owners who have said they were not consulted.

Some regions of the continent have enough ice to push up sea levels by 15 metres if they all melt, but researchers don’t yet fully understand the consequences

On one side of Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi’s view across the vast Totten ice shelf, the sun sat low on the Antarctic horizon. On the other, a full moon.

The ice shelf is “flat and white”, says Galton-Fenzi. “If there’s cloud around, you lose the horizon.”

Blazes in NSW and Tasmania have already led to a firefighter losing his life and close to 40 homes being destroyed as an ominous fire season begins

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Australians should “expect the unexpected” this bushfire season amid dangerous conditions, experts have warned, after a severe start that saw a firefighter killed and homes destroyed in several states.

Bushfires at Koolewong and Bulahdelah in New South Wales destroyed 20 homes and a natural disaster has been declared in several local government areas, while wind-driven fires at Dolphin Sands in eastern Tasmania razed 19 houses and damaged dozens more.

Destruction wrought by swine-borne disease is thinning the canopy of bunya pine forests and the problem is getting worse, experts say

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High up in an ancient conifer rainforest, at what was once the largest Indigenous gathering place in eastern Australia, there is sunlight where there shouldn’t be.

Among the eponymous pine trees of the Bunya Mountains, in south-east Queensland, a deadly disease has taken root. Walking through the forest, Adrian Bauwens, a Wakka Wakka man, says pockets of sunlight have replaced what is “usually quite a dense canopy where’s it’s quite heavily shaded”.

Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’

The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.

Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.