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Welsh home installs UK's first Tesla Powerwall storage battery
Battery could revolutionise UK energy market by enabling people to store excess energy generated from rooftop solar panels
The setting is decidedly modest: a utility room in a red-brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Wales. But if the hype turns out to be right, this may be the starting point for an energy revolution in the UK.
Householder Mark Kerr has become the first British owner of a Tesla Powerwall, a cutting-edge bit of kit that the makers say will provide a “missing link” in solar energy.
Continue reading...Engage early - indigenous engagement guidelines
The latest science is in: environmental water is benefiting native birds, fish and vegetation
'Arachnophobic family' finds giant huntsman spider in Woolworths salad mix
Sydney woman posts video on Facebook of spider crawling through her Italian-style packaged salad greens bought at Woolworths
As meat production depletes the world’s resources and compounds the changing climate, eating insects and other creepy crawlies might well be in all our futures. But one Australian woman came closer than the rest of us when she brought home a sizeable spider in her bag of salad greens.
Zoe Perry posted the video of the huntsman shifting around within the “Italian style salad” bag – with the on-screen caption “Jesus” – to Woolworths’ Facebook page on Thursday night.
DNA sheds light on European upheaval during the Ice Age
Ancient wildebeest-like animal had a dinosaur nose
Why my cycling clothing company uses models without helmets
The debate about helmet use is too often toxic, puts off new riders and obscures more important issues, argues the founder of Vulpine
Let me begin with a story.
Last night I walked into a pub and spotted a guy with two empty pint glasses in front of him. He had a lovely fresh third pint poised at his trembling lips. Fantastic, just what I was looking for.
Continue reading...Aboriginal burning had 'little impact' on land erosion
Crocodile turns up for a swim on Queensland beach near Cairns – video
Luke Downes captured this footage of ‘Snapper Jr’ casually floating towards swimmers at Kewarra beach near Cairns. While filming, Downes offered the crocodile a friendly greeting, but Snapper Jr didn’t stick around for long. Never fear, a wildlife expert has claimed that there are worse things in the water to worry about in that part of the world, like box jellyfish, which are capable of killing a person in under five minutes
Continue reading...AGL pulls out of coal seam gas across Australia, leaving farmers ‘ecstatic’
Energy company cites low oil prices for decision to cease exploration and wind down or sell its gas fields, with CSG opponents calling the move a well-earned victory
AGL is pulling out of coal seam gas in Australia, ceasing its exploration and winding down or selling its operational gas fields.
Plummeting oil and gas prices were cited by AGL as one of the main reasons for the decision in its announcement to the ASX on Thursday morning, as well as lower than expected production volumes from one of its fields in NSW.
Continue reading...Secret lives of Great Barrier Reef's bull sharks revealed
Video shows only known wild jaguar in US at home in Arizona mountains
The big cat, known as ‘El Jefe’, has been living in 25 miles south of downtown Tucson – half a century after the last verified US jaguar was killed by a hunter
The only known wild jaguar in the United States is seen roaming around a creek and other parts of a mountain range just south of Tucson, Arizona in the first publicly released video of the big cat.
Related: Eastern Cougar extinct, no longer needs protection, says US conservation agency
Continue reading...Brexit would return Britain to being 'dirty man of Europe'
Leading group of environmentalists warns that leaving the European Union would mean a return to filthy beaches, foul air and weak conservation laws
Britain risks becoming the “dirty man of Europe” again with filthy beaches, foul air and weak conservation laws if it leaves the European Union, a group of leading environmentalists warned on Wednesday.
The steering committee of the new E4E (Environmentalists for Europe) group includes former ministers, a former EU commissioner and a former head of the Environment Agency. It will work with green groups to persuade people that leaving the EU could set back the UK’s nature protection and prevention of pollution many years. The UK’s referendum on EU membership may come as soon as June.
Continue reading...Hot weather causes zebra finch eggs to hatch earlier than normal
Are you a morning person? It may be in your genes
Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm
Spread says it will open the fully automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process
A Japanese company is to open the world’s first “robot farm”, as agriculture joins other sectors of the economy in attempting to fill labour shortages created by the country’s rapidly ageing population.
Spread, a vegetable producer, said industrial robots would carry out all but one of the tasks needed to grow the tens of thousands of lettuces it produces each day at its vast indoor farm in Kameoka, Kyoto prefecture, starting from mid-2017.
Continue reading...The dark side of credit card theft
World Wetlands Day – Banrock Station wetland to benefit from a well earned drink
Reef 2050 Policy Guideline for Decision Makers - Open for public consultation
Lions rediscovered in Ethiopian national park
Local reports were confirmed when a population of previously unknown lions was caught on camera trap in the remote Alatash national park
Conservationists have announced the “amazing discovery” of a previously unknown lion population in a remote north-western region of Ethiopia, confirming local reports with camera trap photographs for the first time.
Lions were spotted in the Alatash national park on Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, lion conservation group Born Free said.
“The confirmation that lions persist in this area is exciting news,” Born Free Foundation said in a statement. “With lion numbers in steep decline across most of the African continent, the discovery of previously unconfirmed populations is hugely important.” Hans Bauer, a lion conservationist from Oxford University who led the tracking expedition in Ethiopia, said there could be up to 200 lions in the area. “Considering the relative ease with which lion signs were observed, it is likely that they are resident throughout Alatash and Dinder [in Sudan],” he said. “On a total surface area of about 10,000 square kilometres, this would mean a population of 100-200 lions for the entire ecosystem, of which 27-54 would be in Alatash,” he said.