MIT nuclear fusion record marks latest step towards unlimited clean energy
Scientists create the highest plasma pressure ever recorded with the Alcator C-Mod reactor in a breakthrough for clean energy technology A nuclear fusion world record has been set in the US, marking another step on the long road towards the unlocking of limitless clean energy. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created […]
Heathrow third runway close to getting government green light
Whitehall study into air quality expected to give all-clear as Greenpeace and local councils prepare to launch legal challenge Heathrow is edging closer to securing government approval for a third runway after the airport indicated that a last-minute Whitehall study into concerns over pollution will give the all-clear. The airport’s chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said […]
Morally and legally, the UK government has failed us on air pollution | James Thornton
A lack of urgency and failure to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide is why ClientEarth is taking the UK government back to court this week No less than 17 years have passed since new rules were approved in the UK to save thousands of lives by limiting deadly air pollution in our towns and […]
Climate change could drive 122m more people into extreme poverty by 2030
UN report warns that without measures to halt and reverse climate change, food production could become impossible in large areas of the world Up to 122 million more people worldwide could be living in extreme poverty by 2030 as a result of climate change and its impacts on small-scale farmers’ incomes, a major UN report […]
Global warming experiment turns up the heat in Puerto Rican forest
A pioneering research project is aiming to determine how forests in the Amazon, the Congo and elsewhere in the tropics will reacting to rising temperatures Mid-morning in the Luquillo experimental forest in north-west Puerto Rico, and the thermometer already reads 26C. Tana Wood, an ecologist employed by the US Forest Service, pulls on a pair […]
Attenborough hails construction of ship nearly called Boaty McBoatface
Naturalist to attend Merseyside ceremony marking the start of work on the RSS Sir David Attenborough, but public’s choice will be given to attached submersible Sir David Attenborough has hailed the start of construction of a polar research ship, which shot to fame amid calls to name it Boaty McBoatface, as a “marvellous occasion”. It […]
Finance for deep-rooted prosperity is coming | Joseph Robertson
We’re entering a new age for the Earth’s climate and for the way we conceive of finance “Macrocritical resilience” may be the most mystifying two-word phrase you need to know. Though you may never have heard these two words before, what they describe affects everything you live and strive for. Wonky as it sounds, it […]
The Science Museum has lost its way
Wonderlab, the new interactive gallery for children at the Science Museum, is a mess of ethical and science communication contradictions. “What do you wonder?” That is the question the Science Museum has been asking for many months now, in posters, celebrity videos and in online images. It’s been part of the museum’s strategy to ramp […]
Wolves once hunted these Helsfell slopes
Kendal, Lake District A skeleton unearthed by a Victorian archaeologist should give us clues as to when wolves last roamed the Lakeland fells From my study window I watch jackdaws making their chattering sorties above the rooftops and over Kendal Fell. Across the road a footpath leads up the fell, less well known now as […]
Malcolm Turnbull avoids Medicare freeze pledge as Labor focuses on health – question time live
The Coalition prepares to bring registered organisations bill to crack down on unions while the windfarm commissioner will appear before Senate estimates. Follow the day’s news live … 4.53am BST Next Dixer question is to justice minister Michael Keenan. Again, unions. This time Kathy Jackson and Kimberly Kitching. 4.50am BST Dreyfus to Turnbull: I refer […]