Hi Sophie, Easter greetings from Lucca:

 

Wandi the purebred dingo thriving in sanctuary after high-flying ordeal

He was the tiny dingo pup whose story made worldwide headlines after he appeared to have been dropped by an eagle into the backyard of a Victorian home. DNA testing confirmed 'Wandi' is of a breed "on the verge of extinction".

Now, six months on, Wandi has settled into life at the Australian Dingo Foundation's sanctuary, where he has adapted well, despite his dramatic start to life.

Full ABC story.

 

Los Angeles air ‘cleanest in world’ since COVID-19 lockdown

US news organisation CNN reports LA saw some of the cleanest air of any major city in the world, according to IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company which also monitors pollution levels in cities around the globe.

Professor Zhu’s team also found a 40 per cent drop in levels of PM 2.5, a class of microscopic air pollutants that have been linked to serious cardiovascular and respiratory problems, especially in children and the elderly.

A study just released, by Xiao Wu and Dr Rachel Nethery of Harvard University, also linked exposure to PM 2.5 to an increased risk of death from COVID-19.

 

See photo's and more info here:

http://econews.com.au/64144/los-angeles-air-cleanest-in-world-since-covid-19-lockdown/

 

 

Viking-era mountain pass scattered with perfectly preserved artefacts up to 1,700 years old including knitted mittens, a wooden whisk and a broken walking stick with a runic inscription

Melting glaciers in Norway have revealed more than 100 artefacts dating as far back as AD 300 on the side of a mountain pass formerly used by travellers and traders. Clothes, tools and equipment were found by a team of researchers at Lendbreen in Norway's mountainous region (main image), including horseshoes, a wooden whisk (left) that may have doubled as a tent peg, a walking stick with a runic inscription from its owner (bottom right) a mitten (top right), a wooden needle, tongs and a small iron knife.

 

Newly developed enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles in hours!

Utilizing an enzyme found within composted leaves, scientists are now breaking down plastic all the way into a recyclable form in a matter of hours.

Carbios, the French company responsible for the breakthrough, is already collaborating with Pepsi and L’Oréal to unleash industrial market-scale production of the new substance within five years.

“We are the first company to bring this technology on the market,” the deputy chief executive at Carbios, Martin Stephan, told The Guardian. “Our goal is to be up and running by 2024–2025, at large industrial scale.”

 

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/newly-developed-enzyme-breaks-down-plastic-bottles-in-hours/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=16-04-2020

Australia’s main electricity grid was powered by 50 per cent green energy on Saturday, the second time ever this has happened.

At 11:20am on Easter Saturday, renewables were providing 50.7 per cent of the power to Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, the five states served by the National Electricity Market (NEM).

http://econews.com.au/64180/renewables-supplied-more-than-50-of-national-grid-on-easter-saturday/

Scientists are testing whether spraying atomised seawater over the Great Barrier Reef could cool its waters and stop further coral bleaching.

Scientists have blasted trillions of tiny ocean salt crystals into the air over the Great Barrier Reef in a bid to save its coral from further bleaching.

Bleaching has swept across all three regions of the world's largest coral reef system for the first time.

From the back of a barge off the coast of Townsville, Australian researchers are now testing if spraying atomised seawater to mix with low lying clouds could cool waters and stop further bleaching.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scientists-trial-cloud-brightening-to-protect-the-great-barrier-reef-from-further-bleaching?cid=sbsnews:edm:newspm:relation:news:na:na

An estimated 150-foot siphonophore—seemingly the longest animal ever recorded—was discovered during a month-long scientific expedition exploring the submarine canyons near Perth, Australia.

Additionally, up to 30 new underwater species were found by researchers from the Western Australian Museum aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor.

 

The discovery of this massive gelatinous string siphonophore—a floating colony of tiny individual zooids that clone themselves thousands of times into specialized bodies that string together to work as a team—was just one of the unique finds among some of the deepest fish and marine invertebrates ever recorded for Western Australia.

 

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/scientists-discover-longest-animal-ever-recorded/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=17-04-2020

Cloud brightening is a technique that could cool the oceans and prevent further coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. Microscopic droplets of seawater are sent into the air where they evaporate and leave tiny particles of salt which rise up into the atmosphere where clouds condense. The salt reflects back the sun's light allowing the oceans to stay cool.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/queensland-scientists-develop-new-technology-to-prevent-coral-bleaching?cid=sbsnews:edm:newspm:relation:news:na:na

Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have fabricated a solar cell with an efficiency of nearly 50%.

For perspective, the average solar cell has an efficiency rate of 15% to 20%, meaning it’s capable of converting just a small fraction of absorbed sunlight into electricity.

The newly-developed six-junction solar cell, however, now holds the world record for the highest solar conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under one-sun illumination at 39.2%.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/solar-cell-sets-world-records-for-47-percent-efficiency/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=23-04-2020

Beaches See Huge Increase in Leatherback Sea Turtle Nests After Travel Restrictions in Florida and Thailand

From fish returning to the Venice canals to deer in the streets of London, many of the shelter-in-place orders and lockdowns resulting from the coronavirus spread have allowed for nature to come back in some of the least-likely places.

Thailand is the latest nation to make headlines from the phenomenon, after the Thai government placed a ban on international flights and a strong encouragement to stay at home.

Though the coronavirus has shut down Thailand’s tourism economy, a season of peace and salvation for rare leatherback sea turtles has emerged. Endangered in this area of Southeast Asia, they are nesting here for the first time in five years.

 The largest of all living turtles, the leatherbacks have made 11 nests on Thai beaches this spring—more than at any time during the last two decades. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/more-leatherback-turtles-on-florida-and-thailand-beaches/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=29-04-2020

Protected Spanish dunes blighted by hundreds of thousands of tourists and nudists return to pristine condition with NO footprints for first time in 50 years after six weeks of lockdown

EXCLUSIVE: One of Spain's most famous tourist attractions has undergone a miraculous transformation which has left environmentalists stunned but delighted. The undulating Maspalomas sand dunes in Gran Canaria (main) are known throughout the world for their sand mountains and attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, many of them to have sex or to sunbathe in the nude without being disturbed. The dunes, which can only been reached after a long walk, have even been the setting for porn videos. Green campaigners have constantly asked holidaymakers, including the Brits, NOT to ruin the protected environment by drawing pictures, symbols, love hearts (inset) or initials in the sand, some of which could be seen from space, as were thousands of footprints.

 

Sorry about this story Incognito we win some and lose some.

 

'Missing' microplastics are found on the Mediterranean seafloor in the largest quantities ever recorded - with nearly two million pieces per square metre

 

Ocean currents in the deep sea are creating microplastic hotspots which house around 1.9 million tiny pieces of debris per square metre, scientists have said.

 

Melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are responsible for a global sea level rise of 0.55 inches since 2003, study shows

 

Researchers at the University of Washington examined data from two space lasers that were able to make the most precise measurements of the ice sheets to date.