Science

An Australian vegetable grower is backing a $291 million bioenergy and food precinct in Queensland that will turn agricultural and food waste into renewable energy and bio-fertilisers. Led by Kalfresh, the Scenic Rim Agricultural Industrial Precinct in Kalbar, south-west of Brisbane, has secured $80 million in joint investment from Queensland Investment Corporation and Wollemi Capital….

Dingo skeleton at the site. Image Credit: Dr Amy Way/University of Sydney New perspectives on the relationship between Indigenous Australians and animals they shared their environment with are emerging from the discovery of a dingo buried nearly 1,000 years ago in western New South Wales. The animal, known as Garli in the Barkindji language, was…

Jason Momoa launched Mananalu in 2019 with a clear goal: challenge the bottled-water industry to move away from single-use plastic. The Hawaiian water brand began with aluminium bottles and a “buy one, remove one” programme that funded the removal of plastic bottles from the ocean. According to PR Newswire, that effort has resulted in more…

A former wheat-growing farm in West Sussex, England, has recorded a remarkable increase in butterfly numbers just two years after a large-scale habitat restoration project began, with 5,290 butterflies belonging to 28 species documented during surveys in 2026. The findings, reported by The Guardian and detailed by Halnaker Hill Farm, include the first recorded sightings…

After finding 15 coins, Oliver Riedl alerted archaeologists, leading to the discovery of 934 Roman denarii. Sometimes the greatest discoveries are the ones you make when you stop digging. Amateur metal detectorist Oliver Riedl found 15 silver coins buried under a field in western Germany but when his detector kept beeping he suspected there was…

Representative Image of the Galápagos Islands from above, featuring marine iguanas along dark rocky coastlines (AI-generated image) Marine iguanas can be difficult to spot against the dark rocks of the Galápagos Islands, making them challenging to count during conservation surveys. Yet reliable population estimates are important for protecting the species, for which complete population-size data…

Australia’s critically endangered regent honeyeater has lost its traditional song in the wild as its population has declined. A study found that researchers taught captive-bred young males to sing the traditional wild song using live adult tutors. By the end of the study, the experiment helped 42% of the male zoo population learn songs that…

Researchers use light to trigger living algae’s metabolism, enabling the tiny robotic arm to bend without electrical signals. Think of a robot without battery, without traditional motor and without complicated mechanical joints and only living microalgae, soft gels and source of light. That’s the unusual premise of a new experiment by researchers at Delft University…

A centuries-old archaeological puzzle at Westminster Abbey in London may finally be nearing a resolution, with new research suggesting that a skeleton discovered inside a Roman stone coffin belonged to a medieval abbot rather than the Roman-era man named on its inscription. According to an announcement by Westminster Abbey and reports by The Guardian and…

Representative Image (AI-generated) A Pacific island has recorded a significant recovery in several seabird populations following the removal of invasive rats in 2005. A study published in Conservation Biology examined how seven seabird species responded after rodents were eradicated from Surprise Island in New Caledonia. According to the researchers, three species experienced substantial population increases,…