Money won’t last forever — that is guaranteed It didn’t exist when exchange evolved to become a feature of humanities first economic system, nor will it persist when there is no advantage to using it. That time is approaching far quicker than traditionalists care to admit. The reality is that our evolution to a largely cashless society […]

A rubbery sea creature with an irritating habit of clinging to ships and invading beaches could help measure plastic pollution as it can filter tiny particles from the ocean and store them in its soft tissue. Israeli researchers have found that ascidians – round, palm-sized animals also known as sea squirts can thrive in dirty […]

The seabed is not flat and smooth like the shimmering ocean above it. It’s a jagged, uneven landscape of submerged mountains and valleys, all hidden from sight – but not from science. By analysing the isotopic composition of the rocks that make up these underwater mountains networks – called mid-ocean ridges – scientists can identify […]

Plastics have become public enemy number one. This year, environmental groups GreenSeas Trust and Greenpeace have joined forces with the IET to engineer creative solutions to two specific parts of the problem. While the consequences of plastic pollution are becoming obvious, so are the causes. Eighty per cent of marine litter originates from land, with […]

The Hawaii Community Foundation (HCF) announced its 2019 recipients of the Community Restoration Partnership (CRP) grants, totaling more than $1.4 million to fund the protection and restoration of Hawaii’s coastal areas on five islands over three years. The CRP is a unique collaboration of national and international funders, foundations, and private donors, who provide resources […]

A powerful earthquake hit the Ecuador-Peru border on Friday, but there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The quake, measured at a magnitude of 7.5, struck around 12:15 a.m. Hawaii time. Based on all available data, the PTWC said the temblor was not strong enough to generate a […]

I was driving to work this morning with Cindy in the passenger seat next to me. I don’t know who she was referring to when she said, “it annoys me that he doesn’t believe in climate change.” I found myself responding, “I don’t believe in climate change either.” Then I stopped to consider whether that’s […]

Urban living can pressure flora and fauna to adapt in intriguing ways. Biologists are starting to take advantage of this convenient laboratory of evolution. Every student of evolution knows the story of the peppered moth. The species comes in two colors: one a peppered white, the other black. During Britain’s industrial revolution, hungry birds spotted […]

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has determined that the Hawaii deep-set longline fleet, which mainly targets bigeye tuna, killed one false killer whale (FKW) and seriously injured another within federal waters in January. Two is the maximum number of FKW mortalities or serious injuries (M&SI) allowed in a calendar year under rules intended to […]

When it floods in California, the culprit is usually what’s known as an atmospheric river—a narrow ribbon of ultra-moist air moving in from over the Pacific Ocean. Atmospheric rivers are also essential sources of moisture for western reservoirs and mountain snowpack, but in 1861, a series of particularly intense and prolonged ones led to the […]