Blurs

The Yarlung Tsangpo River is one of Asia's most extraordinary rivers. It cuts through the Tibetan Plateau, plunges through a spectacular Himalayan canyon, and eventually becomes the Brahmaputra River, which flows through India and Bangladesh.  It is also at the centre of one of the world's most ambitious and controversial engineering projects. Where is the Yarlung Tsangpo River? The river begins in western Tibet, near the Angsi Glacier, and flows eastwards across the Tibetan Plateau before reaching the eastern Himalayas. Its journey takes it through some of the most remote and dramatic terrain on Earth. As it approaches Mount Namcha Barwa, the river makes a huge horseshoe-shaped turn known as the Great Bend. It then plunges through the spectacular Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, before turning south into India. The river has different names along its journey: Tibet : Yarlung Tsangpo. Arunachal Pradesh, India : Siang, also known as the Dihang. Assam, India : Brahmaputra. Banglades...

For generations, Lough Neagh was simply part of the landscape of Northern Ireland: a vast freshwater lake supporting fishing, farming, wildlife, recreation and communities around its shores. Then, in the summer of 2023, something became impossible to ignore. Large areas of the lake turned green. Thick surface scums accumulated around marinas, jetties and lock gates. Images of vivid green water spread rapidly, and what might once have been regarded as an occasional natural phenomenon became a national environmental story. But the colour was only the visible part of a much larger problem. Beneath the surface was a lake receiving enormous quantities of nutrients, experiencing warmer conditions, containing an invasive species capable of altering its food web — and accumulating pollutants from a catchment covering thousands of square kilometres. The phenomenon did not end in 2023. A significant bloom returned in 2025. As of 2026, scientists and government agencies are still trying to determ...

Antarctica appears to be one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. A vast continent buried beneath an ice sheet several kilometres thick, with temperatures capable of falling far below freezing and enormous regions untouched by direct sunlight. Yet beneath all that ice lies something extraordinary. Water. Not simply isolated pockets of melted ice, but an interconnected environment containing hundreds of known subglacial lakes, channels and rivers. Some of these hidden bodies of water have been sealed beneath the Antarctic ice for extraordinarily long periods. And scientists are beginning to discover that the world beneath Antarctica may be far more dynamic—and potentially far more biologically interesting—than previously imagined. Antarctica's Hidden Landscape When we picture Antarctica, we usually imagine a frozen continent. But the surface of the ice tells only part of the story. Beneath it lies a complex landscape of mountains, valleys, canyons, basins and ancient geological...