A cooling-system accident at a Christchurch research centre briefly exposed precise phone-location records used to chart human activity near kiwi habitat. The data came from a weather app whose users had not been told their movements would feed the conservation study, a Plausible Post investigation found.
A strong offshore earthquake has put Thailand’s Andaman coast on tsunami alert, as scientists warn that a larger rupture could reach crowded beaches within minutes. The emergency has landed on the 20th anniversary of a government hazard model now shown to have excluded half the fault system from its worst-case scenario.
A takeover has exposed years of questionable bird-monitoring data from a coastal restoration project in western Taiwan. The same review found researchers had slept in modular cabins at a former bus depot whose approved use was storage, not accommodation.
A €18.6 million lake-recovery programme (about $21.7 million) reported that Lake Prespa was holding steady, but a new audit says altered satellite images concealed a sharp retreat. The findings have halted fresh grants and put years of environmental research under scrutiny across three countries.
A powerful offshore earthquake has triggered tsunami evacuations in southern Taiwan, just hours after an audit exposed a flaw that may have hidden the coast’s worst-case danger from official models. Scientists warn that waves could reach 4.6 metres in narrow inlets, far above the government’s initial estimate.
A strike by 63 field scientists in southern Nigeria has halted sampling just as their team announces a vast, previously uncharted peat deposit in the Niger Delta. The researchers estimate it holds carbon equivalent to 68 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and say a proposed drainage canal cuts through part of the newly mapped area.
A Taiwanese company’s claim to have detected 23 reef species around Penghu is now facing its first public, independent test, as a new transparency law takes effect. Researchers celebrated the prospect of a long-missing marine census while warning that several of the headline discoveries remain unconfirmed.
A research contest on South Africa’s Bird Island has produced a count of Cape gannet breeding pairs 32% below the figure used by local monitors. The result has prompted an international conservation panel to seek an urgent explanation and consider whether the threatened seabird needs a more severe status rating.
A three-day strike by calibration technicians has halted checks on Egypt’s air-quality network and exposed a dispute over whether suspect sensor parts distorted years of pollution readings. Researchers say the problem may reach 31 stations; the agency running the system says the data remain usable.
A public hearing in Alexandria heard that a severe coastal storm toppled a climate-research mast in western Egypt after its wind limit was set below gusts already recorded at the site. No one was hurt, but the wreckage has left scientists without weeks of measurements used to track sea-salt particles and cloud formation.
Turkey’s power operator has warned that planned outages could affect 1.1 million homes if a fast-moving solar storm disrupts the grid on Sunday. The notice followed a court ruling on compensation for greenhouse growers, while scientists say officials may be understating the risk.
A Swiss research director resigned on Friday after her institute withheld an alarming assessment of unrest beneath Yellowstone, including a disputed scenario in which an eruption could begin within a month. US officials say there is no sign an eruption is imminent, but the data behind the warning have not been publicly explained.