ENVIRONMENT

A study of the activity in the South China Sea reefs had shown the coral reefs in the area greatly deteriorated at the expense of the economic growth activities in mainland China.

Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and South China Sea Institute of Oceanology researchers blamed China's economic boom for the shrinkage by at least 80 per cent of coral reefs in the region over the past three decades.

Scientists from the West Australian Department of Fisheries are looking into the odds that the rising high temperature of the sea waters in the state are what caused sharks to swim near the shore and eventually attack humans.

With the end-of-the-world scenario now over, Australians would likely be able to concentrate on the Christmas and New Year celebrations, which would mean a lot of food preparations. It also means a lot of wasted food. Throughout the year, Aussies waste $8 billion worth of food, said a study by Do Something!, released on Sunday. Based on an estimated volume of four million tonnes of food thrown away yearly, Do Something! founder John Dee reckoned the value of per capita wastage at $1,036.

Australian scientists sounded alarm on the possibility that catastrophic tsunami waves could swamp Queensland coastlines in the event of a very powerful earthquake hitting the region.

A walking catfish, a devilish-looking bat, a singing frog, a ruby-eyed pit viper and a two-legged lizard are among the newly-discovered species in the Greater Mekong region that the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) has listed on its new report titled Extra Terrestrial.

Some people are anxious because of the “End of the World” prediction as per the Mayan Calendar and often wonder if there are places here on Earth where they will be safe.

Many are wondering if the Mayan Calendar 2012 is true and if the world will meet its end on Friday, December 21.

"If you're watching this video, it means one thing: the world didn't end yesterday," begins a NASA video of Mayan calendar doomsday debunking. Obviously, the video was supposed to be released Dec. 22, 2012.

Australia's efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef will be judged by the United Nations' environmental arm UNESCO in 2013, a deadline that will likely push efforts to the limits as this would be a make or break for the tourist attraction if t it is deserving as UNESCO's World Heritage site and worth to be preserved.

It has been a hot debate whether the world will end on Friday, December 21, as per the infamous Mayan Calendar 2012.

The Mayans had in no certain terms predicted the planet will explode or implode on Dec. 21, 2012. But some people still worry, and many of them are calling institutions like NASA to ask doomsday questions. The scientists, in turn, have repeatedly assured those who are panicking that Earth remains safe in 2012.

PacX Wave Glider, the self-controlled swimming robot, reached Australia on Thursday, Dec 6, after a 9,000-nautical mile journey from San Francisco over one year.

The United Nations Weather Agency confirmed that a portion of the Arctic Ice melted with a size area larger than the United States. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also stated at the climate talks in Doha that the 2012 Arctic ice melt is one of the numerous weather events to occur on planet Earth.

The animals have adapted over tens of thousands of years to an environment that is growing increasingly fragile.

Better weather conditions aided the dedicated firefighters in controlling the bushfire that endangered homes at Port Lincoln on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. According to Connie Hassouros, Country Fire Service spokesman, about 120 firefighters have already set up a control line around the bushfire’s border overnight.

Australians have witnessed Mother Nature’s wrath when a massive waterspout formed for about 20 minutes on Batemans Bay in New South Wales. Several footages of the waterspout, where stunning images of the dark grey whirling vortex was captured, quickly circulated on social networking sites.

The total solar eclipse Wednesday can be observed via free webcasts. Where to watch online? Australians should rise early to share the experience real time with those camping out in Cairns, Queensland. Viewers from other time zones should adjust your clocks accordingly. Interested in prep webcasts? Know where to go.

A total solar eclipse is an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. Many people would travel across the world just to see it progress slowly in a span of hours. But everyone is warned against the dangers of looking directly into the sun even when it would appear to be largely covered by the passing moon.

If you think that you have already seen everything, better brace yourself as Mother Nature offers another amazing thing to shock us. Like the one-eyed goat born in Perundurai, Erode, India.

Two years ago, a female spade-toothed beaked whale and its offspring was discovered aground near the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand.

Latest findings from a study conducted by scientists at the University of Queensland in Brisbane showed slurry from farms in Australia had been contributing to the collapse of the corals in the Great Barrier Reef.

Two years after 200 countries, during a United Nations climate conference in 2010, agreed to control their respective carbon emission contributions to below 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, much has yet to be really accomplished, much more acted and worked on, after a new analysis from (PricewaterhouseCoopers) PwC showed the annual rate of reduction of carbon emissions per unit of GDP has exceeded a critical threshold.

Australia, whose abundant metals and minerals resources helped propel it to become one of the stable economies to withstand any rollercoaster financial crisis in the past years, has been found to be unfortunately getting sicker because of the environmental hazards brought about by mining these very resources.

A dozen young blackbirds were found dead at a school playground in Cumbria, England. An investigation indicated that the avian creatures suffered from alcohol poisoning due the birds eating fermented berries.

The true cost of fossil fuel reaches far beyond what is paid at the gas pump -- the expense of waging war to protect oil interests, governmental corruption, global warming and environmental destruction all are part of the equation. And don't forget about the health consequences as well.

The latest discovery of researchers suggests that the appearance of the first flying fish may have changed through the years in order to protect itself from marine predators.

Monster Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the South Jersey coast, as forecasters had predicted, on Monday evening with gale-force winds of 90 miles per hour and bringing with it the promise of "historic" damage that could lead to scores of unprepared Americans "fighting in the streets" for basic goods like food, gasoline and fresh water, local residents are warning.

About 100 carcasses of horses were found in a dried dam in a remote Aboriginal reserve in northeastern Western Australia. The horses died after they got stuck in the mud at Balgo which is within the Halls of Creeks Shire in Kimberley, WA.