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New antibiotic family discovered in dirt
NSW land-clearing prosecutions down 80% in three years
Government says it has no information on extent of clearing under new, less-restrictive laws
Prosecutions in New South Wales for illegal land clearing have dropped by 80% in the past three years, according to data released under freedom of information laws.
The information, obtained by the NSW Labor opposition, shows the Berejiklian government claims not to have any information about how much clearing has occurred under new laws that came into force in August 2017 aimed at making land clearing easier.
Continue reading...Energy divide: Frontier attacks AEMO, wants it abolished
JA Solar supplies mono PERC modules for 250MW solar project in Israel
CEFC backed green loan scheme hopes to boost EV uptake
Tesla charged with diesel generator still cleaner than conventional car
Trump budget US cash for International Space Station
Antarctic iceberg expedition set to reveal hidden realm
Network Rail to install drinking fountains in majority of its train stations this year
Company pledges to introduce free drinking water facilities in many of nation’s busiest stations
Network Rail has pledged to install water fountains in the majority of its 17 managed UK stations by the end of the year.
Related: Bottled water is a nonsense. Just ban it and fill our towns with drinking fountains | Sonia Sodha
Continue reading...Wombats, sharks, possums, frogs: Australia's animals at risk of extinction
Hundreds of Australian animals are endangered, and while they could be saved, government intervention is urgently needed
• ‘A national disgrace’: Australia’s extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight
'A national disgrace': Australia's extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight
More than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities are at risk of extinction right now
• Interactive: Wombats, sharks, possums, frogs: Australia’s animals at risk of extinction
Global warming wiped out the Bramble Cay melomys – the first mammalian extinction in the world to be caused by climate change – but a straightforward plan that could have rescued the little rodent was thwarted by red tape and political indifference.
“It could have been saved. That’s the most important part,” says John Woinarski, a professor of conservation biology who was on the threatened species scientific committee that approved a 2008 national recovery plan for the species, endemic to a tiny island in the Torres Strait.
Continue reading...New crayfish that doesn't need males to mate becomes all-powerful
The EPA debunked Administrator Pruitt’s latest climate misinformation | Dana Nuccitelli
Until Pruitt deleted the EPA climate webpages.
Last week, a Las Vegas news station interviewed Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The interviewer brought up the topic of climate change, and virtually everything Pruitt said in response was wrong, and was often refuted on his own agency’s website, until he started deleting it.
Continue reading...UK team set for giant Antarctic iceberg expedition
Queen Elizabeth II declares war on plastic
Microplastics pollute most remote and uncharted areas of the ocean
First data ever gathered from extremely remote area of the South Indian Ocean has a surprisingly high volume of plastic particles, say scientists
Microplastics have been found in some of the most remote and uncharted regions of the oceans raising more concerns over the global scale of plastic pollution.
Samples taken from the middle of the South Indian Ocean – at latitude 45.5 degrees south – show microplastic particles detected at relatively high volumes. Sören Gutekunst, from the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, who analysed the samples, said the data showed 42 particles per cubic metre, which was surprising given the remoteness of the area.
Continue reading...Country diary 1918: worms crushed and mutilated beneath feet of passers-by
15 February 1918 The ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front
Yesterday morning, and to a lesser extent this morning, worms were unusually active; the influence of spring had penetrated underground and sent them to the surface to feel rather than see the improved conditions. They crawled in thousands over the footpaths; they were crushed and mutilated in hundreds beneath the feet of passers-by; the ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front. These extensive peregrinations must have begun at an early hour.
Related: From the archive, 19 May 1984: Here's hoping the Guinness worm will turn
Continue reading...Country diary: England's only narrow-headed ants are toughing out winter
South Devon: Outside this field the nearest colony of these heathland ants is in the Scottish Highlands
A soggy mound amid the grass stopped me in my tracks. I had spent the best part of an hour searching the heathland reserve, eyes to the ground, before I chanced across it close to a clump of gorse. It was nothing much to look at, admittedly. After a winter of heavy downpours the dome-shaped structure covered with tiny snippets of vegetation had slumped so that it resembled a spadeful of old lawn clippings. Yet beneath the bedraggled thatch was buried treasure: an exceptionally rare colony of narrow-headed ants (Formica exsecta) toughing out the colder months hidden from view.
Shaped like tiny lopsided dumbbells, these territorial ants, named for the distinctive notch in the back of their head, play an important role in maintaining heathland through their foraging behaviour. Colonies can contain several queens along with about 1,000 workers, each armed with strong mandibles and capable of engaging in chemical warfare by firing jets of formic acid from their rear to deter predators.
Continue reading...S.A. to host Australia’s first green hydrogen power plant
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