Latest bid to count and catalogue the living world is billed as the most accurate yet, but only a tiny proportion is known to science.

Humans share the planet with as many as 8.7 million different forms of life, according to what is being billed as the most accurate estimate yet of life on Earth.

Researchers who have analysed the hierarchical categorisation of life on Earth to estimate how many undiscovered species exist say the diversity of life is not equally divided between land and ocean. Three-quarters of the 8.7m species – the majority of which are insects – are on land; only one-quarter, 2.2m, are in the deep, even though 70% of the Earth’s surface is water. Read more

As sea ice disappears and open water seasons last longer, the High North – that vast area above the Arctic circle – has become the oil industry’s new frontier, offering potentially billions of barrels of oil from deep offshore wells in return for the huge technical, safety and financial risks.

But conservationists increasingly argue it is only a matter of time before a catastrophic spill devastates some of the least polluted waters in the world.

So far, the industry has mostly worked onshore or in shallow, easily accessible waters off Alaska. The worst spill was the Exxon Valdez tanker, which sank in 1989, with the effects still felt today. Read more

Warming air from climate change isn’t the only thing that will speed ice melting near the poles — so will the warming water beneath the ice, a new study points out.

Increased melting of ice in Greenland and parts of Antarctica has been reported as a consequence of global warming, potentially raising sea levels. But little attention has been paid to the impact of warmer water beneath the ice.

Now, Jianjun Yin of the University of Arizona and colleagues report the warming water could mean polar ice melting faster than had been expected. Their report was published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Read more

Used plastic bottles are one type of trash that has always fantasized green-minded artists, who turn them into a more valuable product.

Earlier today we saw plastic bottles being converted into beautiful hanging sculptures and now we have another recycled creation for you, which this time isn’t merely an artwork, but life-saving equipment. Read more

In the Andes mountains of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, tucked between the tree line and the line of permanent snow, is the páramo, a unique and hauntingly beautiful mountainous wetland that is threatened by climate change and growing temperature extremes.

The páramo of the Northern Andes is wet and cold. Temperatures can dip below freezing at night and soar above 60 degrees Farenheit during the day. But Daniel Ruiz Carrascal doesn’t mind the extremes. He goes back to this ecosystem any chance he gets, to study how the environment is changing. Read more