Environment
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Struggling to explain warming slowdown
Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. Often focused on century-long trends, most climate models failed to predict that the...
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The deceiving mirror orchid
The mirror orchid is a beautiful insect orchid that is hard to spot but worth looking for. Finding one in Malta is a question of being at the right place at the right time. One has a better chance of finding a few specimens in Gozo and Comino. Good...
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Antarctic ice fading away
Summer ice is melting at a faster rate in the Antarctic Peninsula than at any time in the last 1,000 years, research has shown. The evidence comes from a 364-metre ice core containing a record of freezing and melting over the previous...
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The toxic air we breathe
Europeans no longer see the kind of pollution that within living memory killed thousands of Londoners in the Great Smog of 1952, but the air they breathe still bears invisible threats scarcely less deadly, and little more controlled. While...
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Bite of the Asian Tiger
The spring weather will drive many outdoors, happy to soak up the sun after the cold winter days. But for others, the warm spring air brings with it the impending awakening of the Asian Tiger mosquito with all the misery it inflicts. Although it is...
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Marga valley and the permit mill
Walking out of Qala village square, you are led gently downhill in the direction of Ħondoq ir-Rummien where a small bridge carries you across the valley system of Wied il-Marga. A wide area of open fields opens like a fan, sloping down to the...
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The many facets of flax
The common flax is one of several species of flax, some of which are indigenous to the Maltese islands. It is an important crop plant that is cultivated as a food and as a fibre crop. Different varieties are grown in gardens. The plant belongs to a...
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High-tech production creates 30 flowering plants at garden centre
Sherries Garden Centre in Burmarrad has cultivated over 30 different kinds of flowering plants into production this spring, with over 100,000 of these flowering plants currently in the main production nursery, propagated by the latest computerised...
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Biodivalue produces first results
The Biodivalue project, funded by the Operational Programme I Italy-Malta 2007-2013, has started to yield the first benefits, including the monitoring of vessels fitted with an Automatic Identification System (AIS) through the installation of an...
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Cowboys call the shots in Gozo
A popular ironic cliché is that Gozo is a republic unto itself, with individuals taking unilateral and arbitrary actions being the order of the day. When it comes to planning infringements, the cliché is actually self-evidently true as, in some...
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Seashells, seashells... in the bedrock
The Maltese islands are made up of different layers of sedimentary rock. In geological terms, the islands are very young. They were created long after dinosaurs became extinct and so it is impossible to find dinosaur fossils in any of the islands’...
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Antarctica’s ice expanding
Global warming is expanding the extent of sea ice around Antarctica in winter in a paradoxical shift caused by cold plumes of summer melt water that refreeze fast when temperatures drop, a study showed. An increasing summer thaw of ice on the edges...
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Tagging, satellite tracking reveals blue whales mystery
Balancing in small boats in choppy Antarctic waters, sometimes for hours and covered in ice, Australian researchers shot at endangered blue whales with an airgun to tag the giant creature with satellite-tracking equipment. During a seven-week...
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Are flies bugging you?
What would Malta (and Gozo) be like without a few friendly flies, right? Wrong. The flies we nonchalantly whisk away from our face and food are teeming with disease-carrying organisms that can make us seriously ill. Anywhere that food is prepared –...
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Malta’s energy options on both land and at sea
Supplying small islands with a stable and affordable energy is always a challenge. Malta, a densely populated island nation with high energy demand and limited land area, may need to turn to the sea for alternatives. Space as a marine resource is...
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Fearsome scorpions
Scorpions are arachnids, a class of invertebrate animals in which we also find spiders, ticks and mites. They are easily recognised as they have a pair of segmented claws and a segmented tail that is often kept arched over their back. The end of...
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How more than 1,000 bird species became extinct
More than 1,000 species of birds suffered the same fate as the dodo when humans first colonised the tropical Pacific islands, research has shown. Through hunting and deforestation, the settlers caused irreversible damage to the “untouched paradise”...
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Possum could be Australia’s first climate change victim
A 1°C rise in temperature could spell doom for a rare Australian possum within a decade, potentially making the tiny, long-tailed marsupial the continent’s first victim of climate change, researchers said. Mountain pygmy possums have been a part of...
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Reef-building corals lose out to softer cousins
Climate change is likely to make reef-building stony corals lose out to softer cousins in a damaging shift for many types of fish that use reefs as hideaways and nurseries for their young, a study showed. Soft corals such as mushroom-shaped yellow...
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Concrete poured on Marsalforn coast
Illegality louts seem to creep out of the woodwork at election time, assuming they will get away with their misdemeanour given that public attention is understandably distracted by the electoral fever. One such case concerns a seaside location in...
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