A computer-assisted survey has identified a previously unmapped, 56 km (35-mile) fault beneath Morocco’s High Atlas, the longest such feature yet catalogued in the range. The finding, released weeks after the third anniversary of the 2023 earthquake, has unsettled residents — but researchers say it does not predict an imminent quake.
A retired sound technician’s harbour recorder picked up 1,306 whale calls in one night off Japan’s Iki island, more than five times the station’s previous monthly peak. The startling count helped persuade Japanese and South Korean fishing crews to pause operations in a busy stretch of the Tsushima Strait.
A court fight over a warehouse robot has prompted a new report estimating that Vietnamese student-designed machines generated 19.2 trillion dong in value without royalties reaching their creators. The companies named in the case dispute the allegations, but the report says the problem stretches far beyond one design.
A recall of air purifiers sold as wildfire protection has exposed a filter fault just as smoke from a record fire season is forecast to reach major Dutch and Belgian cities. Scientists warn that, if dry weather persists, unhealthy air could return repeatedly through mid-October; officials say there is no basis for evacuation plans.
An automated warning system sounded across 11 Upper Austrian communities after an archived flood reading was mistaken for live data during the merger of two regional control rooms. Residents moved uphill without injuries, while officials praised the swift response and promised a review before the new service resumes full operation.
A fourth dry winter could put 2.4 million tonnes of crops at risk across northern Italy, scientists warn, as the Po basin enters the autumn with reservoirs and aquifers badly depleted. On the anniversary of the day irrigation channels ran dry in 2022, one farmer remembered for saving a stranger is giving up water for her own fields.
When record rain cut roads and mobile service around Toyama, a small manufacturer’s old-fashioned dispatch boards kept goods moving. Owner Liana Alexa expected a few emergency orders; instead, rival delivery firms are now her biggest customers.
A scientific paper warns that a proposed electricity-sharing pact could make Brazil and three neighbours more vulnerable to the same drought-driven power squeeze. The finding lands weeks before a regional summit, with Bolivia and Chile also seeking a place at the table.
A lawsuit filed in Fiji has turned a months-long shortage of dialysis supplies into an urgent test of who gets a vote in the Pacific’s shared medical reserve. Patients say clinics in three island nations have stocks for as little as 11 days, while the reserve’s next shipment is nearly three weeks away.
A produce warehouse near Naivasha is drawing cool air through a crack in its floor, cutting the heat inside without a running chiller. The discovery is helping its owner make use of costly storage capacity built faster than customers arrived.
A new majority in the Swiss canton of Valais has promised hundreds of millions of francs to reopen a geothermal borehole that was written off as a failure. Researchers say its sealed depths may hold a thriving microbial world — and a clue to how life survives far below the surface.
A dramatic evacuation from a rupturing Antarctic ice shelf has exposed a 14-month-old warning that Taiwan’s officials kept out of public climate-risk maps. Scientists now say the shelf’s collapse could speed the rise of seas threatening coasts across the Pacific.