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The visionary physicist died in his home near Cambridge University, where he did much of his ground-breaking work.

Despite a crippling illness, Stephen Hawking became one of the most respected scientists of his age.

Recycling industry in Victoria and NSW on verge of collapse, Senate inquiry told

Australia’s kerbside recycling systems are at risk of collapse, a Senate inquiry has heard. China’s ban on importation of recyclable rubbish has left councils and state governments in Victoria and New South Wales scrambling to find space to stockpile growing mounds of waste.

An estimated half of Australia’s recyclable waste was going to China before the ban, the hearing was told, although the precise share of waste exported was not known.

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Tributes highlight his breakthrough research as well as his personality and inspiration to millions.

Remembering some of the key theories and quotes of the world renowned physicist, who has died.

The physicist, who battled motor neurone disease for most of his life, has died at the age of 76.

UK households throw away more than 25m slices of bread each day, says anti-food waste campaign

Around 25m slices of bread are thrown away every day in the UK – more than a million an hour – because people do not get around to using it in time and worry it is stale.

Now a new campaign from the anti-waste charity Love Food Hate Waste is urging consumers to freeze bread and toast it straight from the freezer, and to consider eating toast as a snack at any time of day.

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The physicist, who has died aged 76, had motor neurone disease.

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: this is mythologised woodland, a secular sacred place, a hunting ground and a sanctuary

Sunlight pools on thousands of wild garlic leaves on the bank of an abandoned railway cutting. Trees stand in companionable silence, the breath between them is slight. Days ago, slender ash trunks rattled like yacht masts in a marina, hawthorns hissed in the east wind, great oaks and steeple limes soughed in deep snowy murmurs. Much of the storm wreckage has been cleared from the path; it is now a gallery full of early birdsong and light falling in patches as if from high windows.

Yesterday a blackbird repeated a one … two-three … four syllable phrase of song; today it is elaborated by bright description and excited story. Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It about the bird under the greenwood tree singing “come hither” with no enemy but “winter and rough weather”.

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Visionary physicist Stephen Hawking has died, aged 76.

Macquarie Group makes its biggest-yet push into Australian renewables market, with equity stake in Murra Warra wind farm.

Gupta expands solar rollout to more than 1GW in South Australia alone, advances plans for his own big battery and pumped hydro storage, and makes offer to 6,000 employees in Australia to install solar and batteries in their homes.

Matt Canavan uses global "energy future" stage to poke fun at the Tesla Big Battery, embarrassingly for Australia. In other news, Coalition MPs also hate EVs.

Sydney Markets adds another 2.2MW PV array to take total rooftop solar capacity to more than 3MW, says there’s room to go bigger.

They might be disparaged as bin chickens now but in ancient Egypt they were revered

In Australia they’re reviled as bin chickens. But in ancient Egypt, ibises were revered and offered as gifts to the gods.

Two mummified ibises have given researchers at the University of Sydney a riveting insight into their ancient appeal.

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German battery storage specialist VARTA enters Australia market, attracted by huge solar uptake and growing push to “aggregated” systems.

Two separate reports illustrate the vital role communities will play in the success or failure of Australia’s shift to a renewable powered grid.

Mike Pompeo is ex Tea Party, a climate science denier, opponent of Paris climate deal, and biggest recipient of Koch Industries dollars.

Conservationists say planned clearing would make sediment problems on the reef – which funding is designed to prevent – much worse

A property in Queensland with one of the biggest tree-clearing proposals in Australia, and which is specifically identified by experts as a risk to Great Barrier Reef water quality, is one of the beneficiaries of a $4m federal government reef water quality program.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Andrew Picone said that it showed the federal government “isn’t taking its reef commitments seriously” since the proposed clearing would exacerbate the very problem the funding is meant to mitigate.

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A think tank warns of the risk of unintended consequences from the current concern over plastics.