Ethel Perez

17/10/2024

Every day since, Martin's team has been working to clear the water, clean up, inventory and repair everything that's been broken and lost, she says. "There's a significant amount of work to be done over the next few weeks to months," says Martin.
She doesn't yet know when they'll be able to recover fully, but says she considers the response to Hurricane Helene a success: her team deployed the aquarium's storm preparation plan without a blip. The plan is thoroughly reviewed and updated by the organisation every year, says Martin, and consists of moving equipment and animal exhibits to higher grounds if necessary. Through Helene, they kept their animals as safe as they could.
Now the aquarium is bracing for the impacts of Hurricane Milton, less than two weeks after the destruction from Helene. It's just one of many zoos and aquariums making urgent preparations. The Florida Aquarium has moved nine penguins, a smack of moon jellies, six snakes, three lizards, three turtles, two alligators, two toads and a hermit crab from their enclosures on the first floor to higher, safer ground.

27/09/2024

Swindale Beck, a stream in Cumbria, in the heart of the UK's Lake District, meanders through fields, farmland and valleys. However, not long ago, the river took a far more linear course.
A healthy river should be sinuous, free flowing and replete with wildlife. In Britain, however, 97% of rivers are fragmented by artificial barriers like weirs. Now, there is at least one artificial barrier for every 1.5km of stream in the country. And for centuries rivers have been slowly canalised – or artificially straightened – to stop water from flooding and spilling onto farmland and houses.
But removing a river's natural meanders has, in fact, achieved the opposite effect. Instead, it's disrupted the flow of rivers and degraded aquatic habitats, water quality and heightened flood risk. As the poor health of Europe's rivers and streams continues to make news – due to dwindling wildlife, sewage pollution and agricultural runoff – communities are turning towards natural solutions to restore their rivers.

23/09/2024

23/09/2024

Although Tolkien didn't directly document the influence of places along the trail, there are several sources of likely inspiration. The route passes the stately home Hacking Hall where, during Tolkien's time, there was a wooden ferry barge, the Hacking Ferry, that carried people across the River Ribble. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the Bucklebury Ferry (also outside a stately home, Brandy Hall) carries the hobbits across the Brandywine River in similar fashion while they are fleeing a fearsome spectral horseman.
The local landowning family near Stonyhurst, meanwhile, were called the Shireburns – and the similarly named River Shirebourne appears in Tolkien's geography of Middle-earth. Tolkien's maps, meanwhile, depict the convergence of three rivers – the Shirebourne, Withywindle and Brandywine – in a way that exactly mirrors the meeting of the Hodder, Ribble and Calder rivers here in Lancashire. In addition, St Mary's Church in the nearby village of Newchurch-in-Pendle bears an unusual feature: an eye-shaped carving halfway up the tower, known as the Eye of God, which resembles the all-seeing Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings books and movies.

18/09/2024

To enter the town of Pomfret, located in the US state of Vermont, is to be instantly struck by its bucolic beauty. From the north, Howe Hill Road winds downhill in a series of gentle curves, each sweep revealing verdant farm fields dotted with sheep, or swaths of forest in which the red and orange autumn leaves cling to boughs. At one home, a tree heavy with apples bends over a meticulously maintained stone wall, its slate top filled with decaying fruit.
But come early autumn, more than half of the cars driving through this 900-person town will sport out-of-state license plates, coming to abrupt stops on a road with a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit, blocking one of two lanes. The reason? To take a picture of a farm's silo against a backdrop of autumn leaves.
With a mere handful of businesses – a general mercantile store, an art centre with a gallery and a theatre and a few pick-your-own apple or pumpkin farms – Pomfret is generally a quiet, unassuming place. But in autumn as "leaf-peepers" from around the world descend on the region's rolling hills and fetching small towns to witness its kaleidoscopic foliage, that all changes.

11/09/2024

Oasis have hit out at Ticketmaster's so-called "dynamic pricing", which saw fans pay significantly more than they were expecting for tickets to their shows.
A row erupted over the weekend after many fans were asked to pay as much as £350 per ticket, around £200 more than had been advertised, due to demand.
In a statement issued to PA Media, the band said: "It needs to be made clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management."
They added they had "at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used" in the sale of tickets for the initial dates.

The band's statement came as they announced two further live shows at Wembley Stadium on 27 and 28 September 2025.
Oasis said tickets for the new dates would be handed out via a "staggered, invitation-only ballot process".

05/09/2024

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"There are many hearts in this path," said one such Zalabieh elder, Sabbah Eid. "[It's a] beautiful experience with nature and the life of the Bedouin, far from communication and modern life… it gives a special spirit to the place – complete calm." As Eid explained, much of the impetus for the trail's creation was to support the Bedouin community, connecting "a new generation of young people to work on this path – instead of working with tours on cars".
Hoffler believes that Bedouin-led efforts like the Wadi Rum Trail can help preserve the Bedouin's natural environment and cultural heritage. "If history have shown us anything it's that the Bedouin known how to live sustainably in the wilderness," Hoffler said.

02/09/2024

The Waveney is my local river, too. And as this year marks 25 years since Deakin's ground-breaking book Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain, which arguably launched Britain's wild swimming movement by embracing the outdoors, encouraging the "right to swim" and arguing that "natural water has always held the magical power to cure", I wanted to journey the length of this waterway most Brits haven’t heard of with a dip, kayak and pedal about to unearth its allure.
Deakin lived for 26 years in a 16th-Century farmhouse in the village of Mellis, four miles south of the Waveney, where he would swim in its moat. His regular wild dip sparked the idea of 36 swim adventures in places across Britain. Breaststroke inspired pen stroke and his cult classic emerged. In his three dozen plunges for Waterlog, he took in the Isles of Scilly with a snorkel and submersions in ice-cold tarns in Wales. But the Waveney was his favourite river and he would return to it time and again, devoting much of the chapter Extinctions to the waterway.

16/08/2024

As a smaller country bordered by five other nations, Switzerland has been influenced by various cultures and languages throughout its existence, which has led to positive styles of governance, according to residents. "One big cultural influence is our history as a 'nation by will', with a lot of minorities (cultural, ethnic, language etc), resulting in a high sensitivity and acceptance of compromises," said resident Res Marty, founder of Switzerland Beyond Chocolate.
The country famously practices direct democracy where every citizen gets a vote on laws and referendums, which helps residents feel like they have a real voice when it comes to how they live and how their tax dollars are spent. "In our village, they wanted to extend the school so there was a vote to raise the tax for five years to pay for it," said Rosamund Tagel, founder of Glow Concierge, who lives and works in Zürich. "The vote passed with an overwhelming majority because people understand the importance of education."

We spoke to residents about how these policies shape Switzerland as a premier place to live, and how they contribute to an overall higher quality and enjoyment of life.

01/08/2024

Another experiment recruited US students taking Graduate Record Examinations that are part of university admissions for higher degrees. Before a mock exam, some participants were provided with a short text reminding them that anxiety can sometimes be beneficial to performance. "This means that you shouldn't feel concerned if you do feel anxious while taking today's GRE test. If you find yourself feeling anxious, simply remind yourself that your arousal could be helping you do well."
They subsequently performed better on the mock exam and the real thing, with particular improvements on the maths section – the area most likely to trigger their anxiety. The scientists name this mental shift "reappraisal" – and note that it's a way of "turning the knots into your stomach into bows", a sentiment worthy of the happy-go-lucky Joy.

23/07/2024

Inside Lock 11 on the Erie Canal in Amsterdam, New York, the metal-on-metal grinding of gears signalled the closing of the gate behind us. With our teal kayaks lined up along the walls of the lock – an aquatic "lift" that raises or lowers boats on sections of the canal where water levels are unequal – we looked like a befuddled shiver of sharks. "Is it too late to go back?" the paddler behind me whispered, hands gripping the rope hanging along the wall beside her, as the water began to drain.
Ten women and men had come out on a sunny June morning to take part in On the Canals, a state-funded recreational programme along the Erie: the US' most important manmade waterway, which celebrates its bicentennial in 2025.
A voice at the front of the group sang out the opening of the popular American folk tune: "Low bridge, everybody down" / "I've got a mule, and her name is Sal."
"Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal!" we shouted back.

28/06/2024

It's late September and a handful of trees sprouting wild berries are the last signs of life on Maakalla, a lonely island cast 18km off Finland's western coast in Bothnian Bay. When winter comes in a few days' time, they will be buried under a veil of white snow. But right now, the sky is the spent blue of a retreating summer, glinting off the roofs of the empty wooden cabins that dot the 20-hectare island. "I believe we're the only ones here," whispers Martta Tervonen, my guide for the day.
With a playlist of crashing waves on loop, Tervonen and I stroll across the island's stony pathways. "You know, when the island was discovered [by fishermen and seal hunters in the 15th Century], it was only 9mm above the water's surface," explains Matti Hautala, the boat captain who ferried us here from Keskuskari harbour on the mainland. Everything around me was once submerged under water, but each year since the weight of Ice Age glaciers that once covered this area melted more than 10,000 years ago, the land holding Bothnian Bay continues to slowly rise – a phenomenon known as glacio-isostatic uplift. Today, the island is more than 5m above sea level.