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Tracks in White Sands national monument suggest hunters tracked 8ft creature with long arms and sharp claws – but it’s unclear why

Researchers studying a trail of fossilized footprints on a remote New Mexico salt flat have determined that the tracks tell the story of a group of ice age hunters stalking a giant sloth.

Scientist David Bustos said the tracks, both adult and children’s footprints found at White Sands National Monument, showed people followed a giant ground sloth, purposely stepping in their tracks as they did so.

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The US space agency has launched its latest mission, heading for the interior of the Red Planet.

Illustrator and planetary scientist James Tuttle Keane explains the significance of Nasa's new mission.

InSight's science mission will reveal the interior of the Red Planet for the first time.

Billionaire bike-lover Sylvan Adams has a dream to get Israel cycling – he funded the Middle East’s first velodrome, gave car-centric Tel Aviv a cycle network, and is behind the country’s first Grand Tour. But will it work?

While some wealthy benefactors to Israel choose to plant forests, build scenic promenades or put their names on hospitals, Sylvan Adams loves cycling so much he seed-funded some cycleways to help transform Tel Aviv into the “Amsterdam of the Middle East”.

The Canadian real-estate billionaire also supplied cash to build a new velodrome – the first in the Middle East – and created a professional Israeli cycling team. He also stumped up some of the £9m fee for staging the first three stages of the 101st Giro d’Italia in Israel, which kicked off yesterday.

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Barns Ness, East Lothian: Pools teem with tiny creatures and fossilised coral demands attention – the whole place is dense with life, old and new

Out on the headland at Barns Ness, the strand is pitted with rockpools and slung with seaweed of all textures. Bladderwrack and fleecy gutweed and long-tailed oarweed and sugar kelp lie heaped upon one another, slick and slippery underfoot. The pools themselves seem empty on first approach, but after a minute’s silent watch they come to life: periwinkles inching almost imperceptibly along, shore crabs sidling from under rocks with a suspicious air, and – best of all – tiny hermit crabs in their pilfered shells, peeking shyly out, antennae waving.

We have spent a week here in the lighthouse cottages in Barns Ness, waking to the sound of crashing waves beyond the wall. The weather has been temperamental, so when the sun appears we rush out the door and down to the shoreline. Today the clouds are strung high and thin in the sky, and the sun casts a great halo around itself – a ring of light that encircles the lighthouse too, and the peregrine falcon that perches on its rail.

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Listen to birds and possums communicating about land grabs, politics and sex. To celebrate International Dawn Chorus Day, this program about a forest chorus is from the Off Track archive.

New solar powered agriculture and industrial processes are being developed. And South Australia has become a world leader as it takes up renewable energy. But with coral reefs dying before our eyes and climate changing everywhere fast, there isn’t a moment to lose.

The millions of flowers have created a blaze of colour on the Norfolk landscape.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

This week the battle between solar and food farming; and dry-aged mutton that tastes like chocolate!

Four research institutions have partnered to test a forest carbon trade that would involve transferring REDD carbon credits from Colombia to South Korea to help meet Paris Agreement goals.

EU carbon prices nudged back above €13 on Friday to halt a run of three straight daily losses notched since the 2017 compliance deadline passed, as a looming week of tighter auction supply deterred selling.

EU countries handed out a further 3.68 mln free carbon allowances to industry for 2018 in the past two weeks, European Commission data released late Friday showed, as the deadline for surrendering units against last year’s emissions passed.

Environment secretary favours the move but it is hotly contested within government

Michael Gove is spearheading plans to halt the sale of new hybrid cars from 2040 to help tackle UK air pollution, Whitehall sources have said.

Ministers have been battling privately over whether or not to ban hybrids to strengthen the government’s policy of banning new diesel vehicles in 22 years time.

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Companies regulated by the EU ETS exchanged 10.57 million Kyoto Protocol credits for allowances over the last six months to use for compliance, the European Commission said Friday, continuing the slow usage rate as the market’s overall quota is almost exhausted.

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the EU rose by an estimated 1.8% in 2017, according to the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat.

The InSight probe is due to launch this weekend to investigate the interior of the Red Planet.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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A marmot emerging from hibernation, a friendly elephant and a baby ring-tailed lemur are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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