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US start-up Rocket Lab says its recent launch put a reflective sphere in orbit.

As sceptics fretted over price, range and lack of charging stations, Australia was overtaken by the rest of the world. Now policymakers are being urged to jumpstart the industry

In Elizabeth in South Australia, they stood in a huge line, only three months ago, and spelled out HOLDEN for the helicopters. Thirteen weeks later, after the plant closed and the last car rolled away, the talk began of rejuvenation, a new owner and the promise of the electric.

The proposal, from the British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta, to refit the old Holden plant to make electric cars is still just a suggestion, but it has captured the imagination of a country suddenly keen to talk. On Monday, the idea was backed to the hilt by the premier, Jay Weatherill, and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. On Tuesday, the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the electric car would do to Australia “what the iPhone did to the communications sector”.

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Clean-up has collected more than 12,000 tonnes of plastic since 2015

A beach in Mumbai is looking much cleaner thanks to the efforts of local people to remove a tide of plastic waste that appears on the shore.

A regular group of people, including children, use equipment donated by Bollywood stars to scour a 3km stretch of Versova beach every weekend, and have collected more than 12,000 tonnes of plastic since 2015.

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Sir David Attenborough's impassioned speech at the NTAs was all about protecting "our beautiful world".

Dan Brandon kept 10 snakes and 12 tarantulas in his bedroom and was said to be responsible owner

A lover of exotic animals died of asphyxia after his 8ft-long pet African rock python called Tiny wrapped itself around him, a coroner has ruled.

Dan Brandon was found dead by his mother, Babs, in his bedroom in Hampshire, with the python concealed close by.

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Dubbed the ‘Tesla of the canals’, the unmanned vessels will operate on Dutch and Belgian waterways, vastly reducing diesel vehicles and emissions

The world’s first fully electric, emission-free and potentially crewless container barges are to operate from the ports of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam from this summer.

The vessels, designed to fit beneath bridges as they transport their goods around the inland waterways of Belgium and the Netherlands, are expected to vastly reduce the use of diesel-powered trucks for moving freight.

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Peru’s Health Ministry found shocking contamination among the Nahua, but hasn’t published its full report

An indigenous people living in one of the remotest parts of the Peruvian Amazon has been struck by a mystery mercury epidemic, according to an unpublished Health Ministry report dated 2015 and 2017 seen by the Guardian.

The Nahua only entered into sustained contact with “outsiders” in the mid-1980s, which led to almost 50% of the population dying mainly from respiratory and infectious diseases. Today, numbering less than 500 people, the vast majority live in a village in the Kugapakori, Nahua, Nanti and Others Reserve established for indigenous peoples in “voluntary isolation” and “initial contact” in south-east Peru.

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Team of divers spent two days searching a reef, and hope more red handfish will be found

Divers in Tasmania have discovered a new population of red handfish, doubling the known population of the elusive and extremely rare fish and raising hopes that more may be found.

Until last week the remaining population of red handfish, Thymichthys politus, was believed to be confined to one 50m long reef in Frederick Henry Bay near Hobart in south-east Tasmania.

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Exclusive: government accused of hypocrisy as documents show opposition to urban waste plan

The UK government is opposing strong new recycling targets across the EU despite its recent pledge to develop “ambitious new future targets and milestones”, confidential documents have revealed.

A 25-year environment plan was launched earlier in January by the prime minister, Theresa May, who particularly focused on cutting plastic pollution. The plan, aimed partly at wooing younger voters, says “recycling plastics is critical”.

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The federal government's new funding aims to spread the net wide in investigating possible ways to protect the Great Barrier Reef's corals. Winning this battle will require a wide range of weapons. David Suggett, Associate Professor in Marine Biology, University of Technology Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Neoen says 150MW solar project shows 2000MW of solar and storage could be brought into production faster and cheaper than Snowy 2.0.

SolarReserve has opened its Australian headquarters and a field office near where it will build a 150MW solar thermal power plant.

Construction begins on state's newest wind project near Port Augusta, one that will also include battery storage.

Carnegie Clean Energy is pleased to advise that it has received a $1.63 million grant milestone progress payment from ARENA for the Garden Island Microgrid Project.

Reducing the impacts of human-caused climate change through use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could have major consequences for wildlife, forests and water resources.

White House wanted to use solar tariffs to punish China, but it will end up punishing the states that voted for him the most.

No longer must we wonder whether renewable energy resources can power our future economy, but rather, “how quickly".

A new wind farm in Western Victoria will power more than 20,000 households as part of a jobs boom in Western Victoria with six projects underway or proposed in the area.

Scientists have called for special status to protect coral, penguins and other wildlife in Antarctica.

Deniers have found a platform in emerging publications that publish without rigorous review

There’s a new scientific journal you might not have heard of called the International Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences. It says it “supports scientist who sweats for the real innovation & discovery”.

If that’s a little too sweaty for you, then how about another new journal, also called the International Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences?

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