India Issues Heat Wave Alert as Delhi Posts Record High Temperature 

A man splashes water from a roadside tap on his face to cool off on a hot summer day in Lucknow, India, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP)
A man splashes water from a roadside tap on his face to cool off on a hot summer day in Lucknow, India, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP)
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India Issues Heat Wave Alert as Delhi Posts Record High Temperature 

A man splashes water from a roadside tap on his face to cool off on a hot summer day in Lucknow, India, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP)
A man splashes water from a roadside tap on his face to cool off on a hot summer day in Lucknow, India, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP)

India's weather department issued a red alert for several parts of the country's northwest on Wednesday, warning of a severe heat wave a day after parts of the capital Delhi recorded their highest temperature ever at almost 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit).

A red alert implies a "very high likelihood" of people developing "heat illness and heat stroke", and calls for "extreme care" for vulnerable people, according to the India Meteorological Department.

India has been grappling with unusually high temperatures this summer, and the weather department has said "heat wave to severe heat wave" conditions are likely to continue in several parts, including the capital, through Wednesday.

India declares a heat wave when the maximum temperature of a region is 4.5 C to 6.4 C higher than usual, while a severe heat wave is declared when the maximum temperature is 6.5 C higher than normal or more.

Local weather stations in Delhi's Mungeshpur and Narela neighborhoods recorded a temperature of 49.9 degrees Celsius on Tuesday - an all time record for the city and 9 C above normal.

Delhi's local government also restricted the supply of water because of the heat. It said water levels in the Yamuna River, the main source, were low.

The city does not have uninterrupted water supply at any time, but the government said neighborhoods which received water for some hours two times a day would be subject to further restrictions.

"I appeal to all the residents that whether there is a water problem in your area or not, please use water very carefully," the local government's Water Minister Atishi, who used only one name, said on Tuesday.

Billions of people across Asia, including India's neighbor Pakistan, have been experiencing a hotter summer this year - a trend international scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change.

Three more deaths were attributed to heat stroke on Tuesday in Jaipur in Rajasthan state, local media reported, taking the city's toll to four and that of the state to at least 13.

Rising temperatures also prompted India's polling body to make additional arrangements when Delhi voted in the national elections last week, including deployment of paramedics at polling stations, which were also equipped with mist machines, shaded waiting areas, and cold water dispensers.

The elections conclude on June 1 with counting set to take place on June 4.



Killer Whales Spotted Grooming Each Other with Seaweed

This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
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Killer Whales Spotted Grooming Each Other with Seaweed

This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)

Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced Monday, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools.

Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools. Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches.

Tool-use in the world's difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, however sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells.

A study published in the journal Current Biology describes a new example of tool use by a critically endangered population of orcas., AFP reported.

Scientists have been monitoring the southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, between Canada's British Columbia and the US state of Washington, for more than 50 years.

Rachel John, a Masters student at Exeter University in the UK, told a press conference that she first noticed "something kind of weird" going on while watching drone camera footage last year.

The researchers went back over old footage and were surprised to find this behavior is quite common, documenting 30 examples over eight days.

One whale would use its teeth to break off a piece of bull kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose.

It would then put the kelp between its body and the body of another whale, and they would rub it between them for several minutes.

The pair forms an "S" shape to keep the seaweed positioned between their bodies as they roll around.

Whales are already known to frolic through seaweed in a practice called "kelping".

They are thought to do this partly for fun, partly to use the seaweed to scrub their bodies to remove dead skin.

The international team of researchers called the new behavior "allokelping," which means kelping with another whale.

They found that killer whales with more dead skin were more likely to engage in the activity, cautioning that it was a small sample size.

Whales also tended to pair up with family members or others of a similar age, suggesting the activity has a social element.

The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal manufacturing a tool.

Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University not involved in the study, praised the research but said it "went a bit too far" in some of its claims.

Bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges to trawl for prey could also be considered to be manufacturing tools, she told AFP.

And it could be argued that other whales known to use nets of bubbles or plumes of mud to hunt represent tool-use benefitting multiple individuals, another first claimed in the paper, Mann said.

Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study's lead author, said it appeared to be just the latest example of socially learned behavior among animals that could be considered "culture".

But the number of southern resident killer whales has dwindled to just 73, meaning we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned.

"If they disappear, we're never getting any of that back," he said.

The whales mainly eat Chinook salmon, whose numbers have plummeted due to overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference.

The orcas and salmon are not alone -- undersea kelp forests have also been devastated as ocean temperatures rise.

Unless something changes, the outlook for southern resident killer whales is "very bleak," Weiss warned.