freelance science journalist and author
From Nature, 20 August 2025: From the smiles, bouquets and cheers among the crowd gathered outside the Higher Regional Court of Hamm in Germany on 28 May, it might have looked like those present were celebrating a win. In fact, they had just lost a ten-year legal battle. In 2015, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a mountain … Continue reading Securing climate justice in the courtroom
From The Saturday Paper, 7 December 2024: A soot-smeared man clutches his dog and weeps in relief. A grazier stands defeated before a field strewn with dead cattle. A woman tries desperately to grab a koala picking its way through flaming debris. A fleeing kangaroo is silhouetted against an inferno. In every disaster, some of … Continue reading Planning to protect animals during natural disasters
From the Guardian, 8 December 2024: My vegetable garden is a jungle. The grass is waist-high, the weeds have consumed my gardening tools and representatives from all classes of the animal kingdom – possibly also a jabberwocky – are enjoying a comfortable existence in there, eating my salad greens and each other. Letting things go … Continue reading ‘Let things go feral’: how to do carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard
From The Saturday Paper, 3 August 2024: The beaches of South America’s south-eastern and western coastlines are breeding grounds for sea lions. Every year, hundreds of thousands of these marine mammals converge in riotous crowds along the sandy and rocky beaches that stretch from Lima and Rio de Janeiro down to the southern-most tip of … Continue reading Authorities race to combat the threat of bird flu
From The Saturday Paper, 1 June 2024: Tuesday, May 7, was an ordinary, moderate autumn day in New South Wales; nothing to suggest a risk of excessive electricity use, price spikes or blackouts. Between 5.15pm and 5.20pm, however, the wholesale spot price of electricity skyrocketed from about $450 per megawatt-hour – typical for that time … Continue reading Fossil fuels are unreliable backstops in the energy transition
From Nature, 5 February 2024: The planet has already passed 1.5 °C of warming, according to a new measuring technique that goes back further in time than current methods. At the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, nations agreed not to exceed 1.5 °C, a guardrail of climate change. “We have an alternate record of global warming,” … Continue reading The world has warmed 1.5 °C, according to 300-year-old sponges
From Nature, 12 March 2024: Indigenous Australians have been using fire to shape the country’s northern ecosystems for at least 11,000 years, according to charcoal preserved in the sediment of a sinkhole. The study was published on 11 March in Nature Geoscience1. The practice of cultural burning, also known as ‘fire-stick farming’, is integral to … Continue reading Indigenous Australian fire-stick farming began at least 11,000 years ago
From The Guardian, 26 January 2024: Last year was the hottest year in recorded history. Global average temperatures over 2023 nudged towards 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and for two days in November, they reached 2C above those levels. With a hotter planet come more intense – and therefore more deadly – heatwaves. Extreme heat is already … Continue reading What happens to your body during extreme heat?
From Nature, 13 December 2023: When it comes to renewable energy, India is lucky to have an abundance of natural resources. It is the seventh-largest nation on Earth, occupying around 2% of the planet’s land mass, and has a mainland coastline that stretches for 7,500 kilometres. Most regions experience between 250 and 300 sunny days … Continue reading Renewable energy for the subcontinent
From Nature, 19 November 2023: The southern hemisphere is facing a summer of extremes, say scientists, as climate change amplifies the effects of natural climate variability. This comes in the wake of a summer in the northern hemisphere that saw extreme heatwaves across Europe, China and North America, setting new records for both daytime and … Continue reading Record-breaking summer set to hit southern hemisphere
Bianca Nogrady 