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Xenophobic comments are found in private journals from the physicist's 1920s tour of Asia.

Nasa says it is concerned after the ageing solar-powered Opportunity rover lost all power.

With Antarctica shedding ice at an accelerating rate, here's what you need to know about continent's ice sheet.

Scientists hope to save the saiga, a Central Asian antelope which survived the Ice Age, but is now in peril.

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

California regulator ARB handed out just shy of 790,000 carbon offsets across three different project types this week, as compliance demand helps boost prices.

Queensland investigating claims that mining company New Hope may have circumvented due process by expanding stage 2 operations at its New Acland coalmine without approval.

Households most likely to join in the solar spree are affluent enough to afford upfront investment, but not so much to not worry about future power bills.

What will Antarctica look like in 2070? Will the icy wilderness we know today survive, or will it succumb to climate change and human pressure? Our choices over the coming decade will seal its fate. Steve Rintoul, Research Team Leader, Marine & Atmospheric Research, CSIRO Steven Chown, Professor of Biological Sciences, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Since 1995, several ice shelves off the Antarctic Peninsula have abruptly disintegrated. A new analysis suggests that these events are triggered when ice shelves lose their buffer of floating ice. Luke Bennetts, Lecturer in applied mathematics, University of Adelaide Rob Massom, Leader, Sea Ice Group, Antarctica & the Global System program, Australian Antarctic Division and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Australian Antarctic Division Vernon Squire, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic, Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Otago Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A ‘glacial lake outburst flood’ killed 44 people and many animals in 1818 in Switzerland

In June 1818, ice falling from the tongue of the Giétro glacier had in effect blocked the valley of Mauvoisin in Switzerland. Water was building up behind this ice dam to dangerous levels, and engineers were called in to release it gradually. They drilled a hole through the ice, but it did not relieve the water pressure quickly enough. On 16 June at 4.30pm the ice dam burst, disintegrating and releasing all the water at once.

The result was a catastrophic “glacial lake outburst flood”, a phenomenon characterised by extremely high rates of water flow. Warnings did not travel as fast as the sudden rush of 20m cubic metres (4.4bn gallons) of water, which swept away bridges and buildings in its path, killing 44 people and many animals.

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Achieving emissions reductions in line with Ontario and Quebec’s climate goals will not occur under forecast WCI carbon prices, though it will see billions of dollars sent to California or elsewhere by the two provinces, according to a study released Wednesday.

Global CO2 emissions from energy use climbed 1.6% in 2017 as output rose in both rich and emerging economies amid a pick-up in industrial activity, according to oil major BP.

EU carbon prices inched higher on Wednesday after the market managed to absorb a large UK auction and as EU lawmakers were poised to set new clean energy goals.

Satellites observing the White Continent detect a jump in the rate of ice being lost to the ocean.

Rate of melt has accelerated threefold in last five years and could contribute 25cm to sea-level rises without urgent action

Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate and the subsequent sea rises could have catastrophic consequences for cities around the world, according to two new studies.

A report led by scientists in the UK and US found the rate of melting from the Antarctic ice sheet has accelerated threefold in the last five years and is now vanishing faster than at any previously recorded time.

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Fictional Leros | Tidal power in the 18th century | Feast | AA salute | Interpreters v translators

Further to your travel feature on the Greek island of Leros (9 June), may I recommend to your readers Four’s Destiny: A Wartime Greek Tragedy by Michael Powell, a fictionalised account centring on Leros. Powell weaves a clever, powerful story around some fascinating wartime history. We follow four young men, one each from England, Germany, Italy and Greece, as the second world war changes their lives and destinies.
Ruth Samuels
Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire

• Re the proposed Swansea Bay tidal power lagoon (Letters, 11 June), the tidal-powered grain mill on the River Lea at Bromley-by-Bow in London was economic from the 1700s to the 1930s – and without the super-efficient bearings common in today’s machinery. Such small-scale hydro-powered generators (tidal and river) should be all over the country – they’d provide work and be far less expensive than nuclear. But some city slickers won’t be so able to extract their rent from localised generation so it won’t be approved by UK’s present government.
Robin Le Mare
Allithwaite, Cumbria

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Delegations to the European Space Agency vote to procure another batch of spacecraft, despite British calls to delay.

The right-wing triumph in Ontario shows the left needs a new populism – backed by street protest and a bold NDP

The guardians of respectable opinion forecast that Doug Ford would never become Ontario’s Premier. Now that he has, they are suggesting his reign might be orderly and painless.

While agreeing with his basic agenda, the Globe & Mail is crossing its fingers that Ford “moves slowly on the public-service layoffs and program cuts…to avoid strikes and social discord.”

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My daughter and I spent a weekend scouring the Salcombe estuary for discarded plastics. What we found proves that a throwaway culture is simply not sustainable

One My Little Pony, two crabbing buckets, five balloons, six balls, seven straws, nine shoes, a dozen coffee cups, 20 carrier bags, 205 plastic bottles and lids, polystyrene and a huge amount of rope. That is just a fraction of what my six-year-old daughter, Ella, and I collected over the course of two days last weekend, as we paddleboarded around the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary in south Devon, scouring the foreshores of every creek and cove for 22 miles.

Within seconds of setting off from South Sands beach by the mouth of the estuary, we spotted a clear plastic carrier bag floating in the shallows. Marine wildlife could easily have mistaken it for a jellyfish. Ella grabbed it with a litter picker as we paddled past.

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