An innovative mission on the Welsh border, funded by an anonymous private investor, has begun work to create a ‘permanent human settlement’ under the sea
Down an easy-to-miss turnoff on the A48 just outside Chepstow on the Welsh border, the gentle rumble of trucks, cranes and people at work mixes with birdsong in what is an otherwise peaceful rural setting. It is a crisp and sunny winter morning when I visit and, at first glance, the site appears to be little more than prefab containers and a car park. Yet, behind the scenes a group of men and women with expertise in diving, marine biology, technology, finance, construction and manufacturing are building something extraordinary. They have come together with a single mission statement: to make humans aquatic.
Their project is called Deep (not The Deep) and the site was chosen after a global search for the perfect location to build and test underwater accommodation, which the project founders say will enable them to establish a “permanent human presence” under the sea from 2027.
Phil Short, research diving and training lead at Deep, outside the full-scale replica of the subsea sentinel habitat under construction at a site on the Welsh border. Photograph: Mark Griffiths/the Observer
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/03/2025 - 00:00
02/03/2025 - 00:00
Across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria. By Tess McClure. Read by Sara Lynam
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02/02/2025 - 20:55
Robert Keldoulis and his investment firm Keldoulis Investments poured $1.1m into the fundraising vehicle last year
A major Climate 200 backer has again topped the latest list of political donors, new figures reveal, as the Albanese government attempts to pass sweeping laws to curb big money in politics.
Share trader Robert Keldoulis and his investment firm Keldoulis Investments Pty Limited donated a combined $1.1m to the fundraising vehicle in 2023-24, according to figures published by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on Monday.
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02/02/2025 - 20:35
Some tropical lows are stalling, dumping huge volumes of rain – and climate change is playing a role
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Record-breaking floods across north Queensland have turned deadly, with one woman drowning while being rescued on Sunday. And the flood waters were still rising, with rain set to continue.
With reports of up to one metre of rainfall in parts of north-east Queensland, the heaviest rain has fallen between Lucinda to Townsville in northern Queensland as the Bureau of Meteorology warns the big wet will continue for days.
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This article originally appeared in the Conversation. Steve Turton is an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia
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02/02/2025 - 19:51
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‘Why can’t she come down with flu or Covid?’ former ABC chair wrote in email about Antoinette Lattouf, court hears
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Labor names sites of more study hubs for regional uni students
The federal government has announced the sites of 10 additional study hubs, which operate to improve university accessibility to students living in regional Australia.
Bringing university closer to where you live will encourage more people who otherwise might decide not to go to university at all to give it a crack.
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02/02/2025 - 19:01
Group of Darwin’s frogs threatened by chytrid fungus thrive in specially built room that mimics their natural habitat
Dozens of endangered froglets have been born at London zoo after conservationists launched an emergency mission to rescue members of the species from a remote national park in Chile.
Researchers rushed to Tantauco Park on the southern tip of Chiloé Island after tests confirmed that the lethal chytrid fungus had reached the nature reserve and threatened to wipe out some of the last remaining populations of Darwin’s frogs.
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02/02/2025 - 10:16
Exclusive: National Fire Chiefs Council says firefighters’ ability to respond is at risk as it calls for preventive action
The UK is not prepared for the impact of climate breakdown, fire chiefs have said, as they called on the government to take urgent action to protect communities.
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said the ability of fire services to tackle weather-related emergencies was at risk, despite them often being the primary frontline response to major weather events including flooding, fires caused by heatwaves, and storm-related emergencies, all of which are becoming more common.
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02/02/2025 - 07:30
Critics decry ‘politically motivated’ decision to revisit civil war-era charges against leaders of anti-mining campaign
Five Salvadorian environmental defenders who were exonerated of bogus civil war charges will face retrial this week amid growing evidence of political interference.
Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, were acquitted in October over the alleged killing of an army informant in 1989. The court in Cabañas in northern El Salvador ruled that the state had failed to prove a crime had taken place, or that the defendants, former leftwing guerrilla fighters, were linked to any wrongdoing.
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02/02/2025 - 04:33
First women working as fishing guides on Laxá River, featured in new film, call for action after farmed fish escape
For seven generations, Andrea Ósk Hermóðsdóttir’s family have been fishing on the Laxá River in Aðaldalur. Iceland has a reputation as a world leader on feminism, but until recently women have not been able to work as guides to wild salmon fishing for visiting anglers – a job that has traditionally been the preserve of men.
The 21-year-old engineering student, her sister Alexandra Ósk, 16, and their friends Arndís Inga Árnadóttir, 18, and her sister Áslaug Anna, 15, are now the first generation of female guides on their river in northern Iceland, and among the very first female fishing guides in the country.
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02/02/2025 - 02:30
On top of the added levels of noise and air pollution, there’s the non-trivial matter of demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting several waterways and rerouting a long stretch of the M25
Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has illuminated the “fasten seat belts” sign. Not only have Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves run into severe turbulence over Heathrow, the flight deck deliberately steered the Labour plane into storm clouds. That’s an interesting choice for a government that was already buffeted by serious unpopularity and it’s a choice that a lot of their own party are struggling to explain to themselves. Anger about the chancellor’s new commitment to back the expansion of the London airport and others is mingled with bewilderment. A lot of Labour people are scratching their heads trying to work out why she wants to burn political capital on a hugely contentious project that couldn’t possibly be complete until long after she’s done at the Treasury and Sir Keir is gone from Number 10.
It was her choice and his. She didn’t have to make airport expansion the centrepiece of her keynote speech about growth. The prime minister, if his title means anything, could have stopped his chancellor had he wanted to. One consequence of the fury about the subject is that it diverts attention from her more welcome thoughts about how to boost Britain’s growth-starved economy.
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