CNN
By Angela Fritz

Antarctica’s so-called “doomsday glacier” – nicknamed because of its high risk of collapse and threat to global sea level – has the potential to rapidly retreat in the coming years, scientists say, amplifying concerns over the extreme sea level rise that would accompany its potential demise.

The Thwaites Glacier, capable of raising sea level by several feet, is eroding along its underwater base as the planet warms. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier’s historical retreat, hoping to learn from its past what the glacier will likely do in the future.

Our underwater future: What sea level rise will look like around the globe

They found that at some point in the past two centuries, the base of the glacier dislodged from the seabed and retreated at a rate of 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) per year. That’s twice the rate that scientists have observed in the past decade or so.

That swift disintegration possibly occurred “as recently as the mid-20th century,” Alastair Graham, the study’s lead author and a marine geophysicist at the University of South Florida, said in a news release.

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The Scientist News
Catherine Offord

Roughly 21,000 fish have died at a University of California, Davis, research center after apparently being exposed to toxic levels of chlorine released by the tanks’ decontamination system. The fish, which were discovered dead in their tanks at the Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture (CABA) last Tuesday (August 9), included Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and green and white sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris and A. transmontanus), species that are threatened or endangered in some parts of their ranges. Their deaths, experts say, could set back research at the center by years.

“We are devastated to report that a catastrophic failure has resulted in the loss of about 21,000 fish” at CABA, UC Davis said in a statement last Thursday. “The loss appears to be due to chlorine exposure, to which fish are especially sensitive,” it added, noting that an internal investigation and external review were underway to figure out exactly what went wrong.

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ALJAZEERA
By Edna Mohamed and Virginia Pietromarchi

• United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to agree to a demilitarised perimeter around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

• Guterres’s remark comes following the release of an IAEA report on the power station which recommended the establishment of a ‘security zone’ as the UN nuclear watchdog experts found extensive damage at the plant.

• Russian-installed commander in Berdiansk city killed after car bomb explosion; authorities call the incident a terror attack.

• Ukraine claims success in its counteroffensive against Russian forces, posting an image online of soldiers raising the blue and yellow flag on a rooftop purportedly in Kherson.

• A Russian missile attack kills three civilians in the Kharkiv region, says a local official.

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The New York Times
By Carl Zimmer

One of the most remarkable things about our species is how fast human culture can change. New words can spread from continent to continent, while technologies such as cellphones and drones change the way people live around the world.

It turns out that humpback whales have their own long-range, high-speed cultural evolution, and they don’t need the internet or satellites to keep it running.

In a study published on Tuesday, scientists found that humpback songs easily spread from one population to another across the Pacific Ocean. It can take just a couple of years for a song to move several thousand miles.

Ellen Garland, a marine biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and an author of the study, said she was shocked to find whales in Australia passing their songs to others in French Polynesia, which in turn gave songs to whales in Ecuador.

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Story by Terrence McCoy
Photos by Rafael Vilela for The Washington Post

BRASILÉIA, Brazil — Daniel Valle sped down Highway 317, closing in on the first targets of the day. He was in a hurry. Deforestation alerts had tripled in recent weeks. Police were warning that armed criminal groups had invaded new territory. Another season of destroying the Amazon rainforest was here, and in this corner, the only check on the looming ecological disaster was this: Valle’s small team of inspectors in a dirt-splattered pickup truck.

“This is it,” said Valle, 39, pulling off the highway. A roving state environmental inspector, he traveled throughout this remote land that was increasingly under threat from a wave of destruction that had leveled the forests to the east. His job was to slow its advance. The challenge felt futile most days. But especially today.

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NPR
Julia Simon

In June 2021, NPR profiled Gloria Majiga-Kamoto of Malawi, who saw goats dying after eating plastic bags and decided to take on her nation's plastic industry. Cheap, single-use plastic is such a problem in Malawi that in 2015 the government instituted a thin plastic ban. But before the ban could go into effect, the country's powerful plastic industry filed an injunction. That's until Majiga-Kamoto, who works for a local environmental organization, came along, organizing protest rallies and marches. In 2019 the nation's High Court finally ruled in favor of the ban. In 2021 she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work. So what's happened to her in the last year?

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EARTH.COM
By Zach Fitzner

According to research carried out by non-profit Friend of the Sea, ship strikes kill more than 20,000 whales every year. This an alarming number, especially considering how close to extinction some species (such as the North Atlantic right whale) already are. 

The problem of whale ship collisions is a worldwide phenomenon, but Friend of the Sea has identified eleven key spots where strikes are especially common. These are areas where shipping lanes cross prime feeding and breeding areas for whales. 

The key areas and endangered whale species that are threatened by ship strikes include: blue whales in Sri Lanka, sperm whales in the Canary Islands, and humpback whales in Panama.

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