24/7 News Coverage
August 19, 2025
EARLY EARTH
Fossil discoveries in southern Africa reveal life before catastrophic Permian extinction



Seattle WA (SPX) Aug 13, 2025
An international research team has spent more than 15 years unearthing fossils across southern Africa to better understand life in the Permian period, which began 299 million years ago and ended 252 million years ago in Earth's most severe mass extinction. Led by scientists from the University of Washington and the Field Museum of Natural History, the project identifies species that thrived in southern Pangea before the "Great Dying" eliminated about 70% of land species and an even greater proportion of ... read more

ENVIROMENT.WIRE
DISASTER.WIRE
 WAR.WIRE
Previous Issues Aug 14 Aug 13 Aug 12
ADVERTISEMENT

Commercial UAV Expo | Sept 2-4, 2025 | Las Vegas


FARM NEWS
Liverwort gene discovery reveals ancient mechanism behind plant reproductive growth
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
Kobe University researchers have uncovered the genetic basis behind vegetative and sexual reproduction in liverworts, potentially offering insights into increasing crop yields and enabling space-bas ... more
FARM NEWS
Potato traces its ancient roots to tomato hybridization
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
An international team of scientists has traced the evolutionary origin of the modern potato to a natural hybridization event between wild tomato relatives and Etuberosum species in South America rou ... more
EPIDEMICS
Scientists sequence avian flu genome found in Antarctica
Washington DC (UPI) Aug 15, 2025
A team of Chilean scientists has sequenced the first complete genomes of the H5N1 avian influenza virus found in birds in Antarctica. ... more
SHAKE AND BLOW
9 dead, 3 missing in north China flash flood: state media
Beijing (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> A flash flood in Inner Mongolia killed nine people and left three missing, Chinese state media said Sunday. A group of 13 people were camping outdoors in Inner Mongolia's Urat Rear Banner wh ... more
SHAKE AND BLOW
Hundreds dead and missing in flood-hit northwest Pakistan
Peshawar, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> More than 150 people are missing in northwest Pakistan, the head of the provincial disaster authority said Sunday, after flash floods that have killed at least 344 people in the country. Tho ... more
WATER WORLD
Drought, dams and diplomacy: Afghanistan's water crisis goes regional
Faryab, Afghanistan (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> Over four decades of war, Afghanistan wielded limited control over five major river basins that flow across its borders into downstream neighbouring nations. But as Taliban authorities swep ... more
WATER WORLD
From drought to floods, water extremes drive displacement in Afghanistan
Afghanistan (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> Next to small bundles of belongings, Maruf waited for a car to take him and his family away from their village in northern Afghanistan, where drought-ridden land had yielded nothing for years. ... more
WATER WORLD
Women bear brunt of Afghanistan's water scarcity
Shibar, Afghanistan (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> In a remote Afghan village, women strap yellow plastic jerry cans to donkeys and travel every day down a dusty canyon to collect as much water as they can. The containers hold barely enough ... more

ADVERTISEMENT


TECHNOLOGY NEWS


Available on Amazon Books

SHAKE AND BLOW
Hurricane Erin intensifies to 'catastrophic' category 5 storm in Caribbean
Washington (AFP) Aug 16, 2025
/> Hurricane Erin on Saturday strengthened to a "catastrophic" Category 5 storm as it barrelled towards the Caribbean, with weather officials warning of possible flash floods and landslides. Th ... more
SHAKE AND BLOW
Pakistan rescuers recover bodies after monsoon rains kill 320
Peshawar, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 16, 2025
/> Rescuers were struggling to retrieve bodies from debris after flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains across northern Pakistan killed at least 321 people in the past 48 hours, authorities ... more
SHAKE AND BLOW
Hundreds of houses damaged in northeast Nigeria flood
Maiduguri, Nigeria (AFP) Aug 15, 2025
/> Torrential rains sparked intense floods and damaged hundreds of homes in the northeast Nigerian town of Potiskum, emergency authorities and a local resident told AFP on Friday. Weather autho ... more
WEATHER REPORT
'Like hell': Indoor heat overwhelms Saudi Arabia's cooks, bakers
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (AFP) Aug 15, 2025
/> Baker Eid Ahmed just can't get away from Saudi Arabia's notorious heat: he makes bread next to a sweltering oven for 13 hours a day, only to step outside into summer temperatures that can soar p ... more
WATER WORLD
Stockholmers told to cut back on tap water due to supply issue
Stockholm (AFP) Aug 15, 2025
/> Swedish authorities on Friday urged businesses and 1.5 million residents in greater Stockholm to cut back on tap water for the next few weeks as unusually warm freshwater temperatures have led t ... more
IRON AND ICE
Destructive cosmic airbursts likely more common than previously believed
Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Aug 08, 2025
Touchdown airburstseart - a type of cosmic impact that may be more common than the crater-forming, dinosaur-killing kindeart - remain somewhat less understood. UC Santa Barbara Earth Science Emeritu ... more
TECHNOLOGY NEWS


DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Rain halts rescue operation after Pakistan floods kill hundreds
Buner, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 18, 2025
/> Rain on Monday halted search and rescue operations in northern Pakistan after flash floods that have killed nearly 350 people with around 200 still missing, officials said. Torrential rains ... more
TECH SPACE
CO2 increase to reshape geomagnetic storm impacts on satellites
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 15, 2025
Rising carbon dioxide levels in Earths upper atmosphere will alter how geomagnetic storms influence satellite operations, according to new research from the U.S. National Science Foundation National ... more
FIRE STORM
Hundreds flee as rescuers battle wildfire in Gallipoli; Spain PM vows 'climate pact' on visit to fire-hit region
Istanbul (AFP) Aug 17, 2025
/> Seven villages on Turkey's Gallipoli peninsula flanking the Dardanelles Strait were evacuated as firefighters battled a raging wildfire propelled by high winds, officials said. The fire bega ... more
AFRICA NEWS
Ivory Coast village reburies relatives as rising sea engulfs cemetery
Grand-Lahou, Ivory Coast (AFP) Aug 15, 2025
/> Fisherman Alphonse Akadie was forced to exhume the bodies of his relatives last year from the village cemetery in Ivory Coast to avoid their remains being carried off into the ocean. Over th ... more
DEMOCRACY
Hong Kong court hears closing arguments in tycoon Jimmy Lai's trial
Hong Kong (AFP) Aug 18, 2025
/> Hong Kong prosecutors on Monday began closing arguments in the trial of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, arguing he had shown "unwavering intent" to ask for foreign sanctions against Hong K ... more
SINO DAILY
Rooms of their own: women-only communities thrive in China
Linan, China (AFP) Aug 18, 2025
/> Laughter erupts over a board game and coffee at a rural cottage in China's eastern province of Zhejiang, one of a growing number of women-only co-living spaces far from social pressures and male ... more
WOOD PILE
Fight to save last forests of the Comoros unites farmers, NGOs
Mutsamudu, Comoros (AFP) Aug 18, 2025
/> Strips of bare land scar the lush and green mountainsides towering above Mutsamudu, the capital of the Indian Ocean island of Anjouan. On the most mountainous and densely populated island in ... more
WATER WORLD
Tourism deal puts one of Egypt's last wild shores at risk
Wadi Al-Gemal National Park, Egypt (AFP) Aug 18, 2025
/> In Egypt's Wadi al-Gemal, where swimmers share a glistening bay with sea turtles, a shadowy tourism deal is threatening one of the Red Sea's last wild shores. Off Ras Hankorab, the endangere ... more
WATER WORLD
With waters at 32C, Mediterranean tropicalisation shifts into high gear
Istanbul (AFP) Aug 15, 2025
/> When Murat Draman went scuba diving off the coast of the southern Turkish province of Antalya and saw the temperature in the depths was pushing 30C, it didn't surprise him. "We were at a de ... more
AFRICA NEWS
Mali junta accuses foreign powers of destabilisation plot
Dakar (AFP) Aug 14, 2025
/> The authorities in Mali on Thursday said a French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for French intelligence services, and accused "foreign states" of trying to destabilise the c ... more
DISASTER MANAGEMENT
4.4 million Somalis face severe hunger: disaster agency
Nairobi (AFP) Aug 14, 2025
/> More than four million people in Somalia face "acute food insecurity", while over 100,000 have been displaced by conflict since June, its disaster authorities said Thursday. Somalia is grapp ... more
WATER WORLD
Solomon Islands says China not influencing diplomatic decisions
Suva, Fiji (AFP) Aug 14, 2025
/> Solomon Islands defended its move to bar some partners from an influential summit of South Pacific leaders, brushing aside claims on Thursday of a looming split or that China is influencing its ... more
TECHNOLOGY NEWS


Available on Amazon Books

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Last chance saloon for global plastic pollution treaty
Geneva (AFP) Aug 14, 2025
/> Negotiators trying to secure a global agreement on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution have less than 24 hours to salvage a deal on Thursday after the talks plunged into total disarray. ... more
SPACE MEDICINE
Genetic traits behind hibernation may offer new hope for treating metabolic disease
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 05, 2025
New findings from the University of Utah Health suggest that the genetic adaptations enabling animals to hibernate may also lie dormant in the human genome - offering potential pathways to treat con ... more
EARTH OBSERVATION
Do you want to freeze a cloud? Desert dust might help
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Aug 05, 2025
A new study shows that natural dust particles, swirling in from faraway deserts can trigger freezing of clouds in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. This subtle mechanism influences how much sunlight clou ... more
ICE WORLD
Falling ice accelerates glacier retreat in Greenland
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Aug 15, 2025
Iceberg calving, where massive ice blocks detach from glacier fronts and plunge into the ocean, is a major factor in Greenland's rapid ice loss. An international team led by the University of Zurich ... more
EARTH OBSERVATION
Sunlight powered flyers unlock access to the mesosphere
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 15, 2025
A team from Harvard SEAS, the University of Chicago, and collaborators reports a sunlight powered way to sample the hard to reach mesosphere, 50 to 100 kilometers above Earth. Their Nature study dem ... more
ADVERTISEMENT




Buy Advertising About Us Editorial & Other Enquiries Privacy statement
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2025 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement