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'Oumuamua's shifting identity may reveal details about other solar systems.

Researchers have found complex molecules in the ocean of Enceladus, only previously known on Earth and in meteorites.

The space telescope that will follow the Hubble observatory suffers another delay in preparations.

The volcano on Isabela Island is spewing lava from fissures which opened after two strong earthquakes.

Lower costs and battery technology offer hope – but industry says it needs support

“I’m 87% self-powered today. Yesterday I was 100%,” Howard Richmond said, using an app telling him how much of his London home’s electricity consumption is from his solar panels and Tesla battery.

The retired solicitor lives in one of the 840,000-plus homes in the UK with solar panels and is part of an even more exclusive club of up to 10,000 with battery storage.

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The rejected Welsh tidal power scheme is a missed opportunity on many fronts, says the chair of the planning inspectors who studied the proposal

The rejection by ministers of the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon (Report, 26 June) must be the final nail in the coffin of what was once claimed would be “the greenest government ever”.

When I and my fellow planning inspectors spent the best part of a year examining and reporting on both the principle and the detail of the project in Swansea, it was clear that this pathfinder project had important environmental, cultural and regeneration benefits.

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Israel | Butterflies | Doughnuts at the cricket | Bra sizes | Morris Minors

Tony Greaves asks for Israel to be treated like other states (Letters, 26 June) on the very day that Britain, after a wait of 70 years, treats Israel like other states with a first royal visit.
Mark Drukker
Reading, Berkshire

• If Peter Hanson (Letters, 26 June) just crossed the Bristol Channel, he would find that, very sensibly, his butterflies have decamped to the Gower peninsula. Walking on the cliffs over the last week I’ve been besieged by butterflies of all kinds – clearly they have realised that a better lifestyle is on offer over the border in Wales.
Anne Cowper
Swansea

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Part 1 of a report on the indigenous Siona people in the Putumayo region in the Amazon

Placido Yaiguaje Payaguaje, an indigenous Siona man, was standing right where his 80-something mother was blown apart by a land-mine. There was a crater about the size of a beach ball. Surrounding foliage had been shredded, and on some of the leaves and fronds you could still see the dynamite.

This was a 20 metre, steepish climb down to the banks of the River Piñuña Blanco, deep in the Colombian Amazon. Placido’s mother had come here to fish in a lagoon nearby. It was a popular spot for singo, sábalo and garopa.

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After visiting a whale sanctuary in Iceland there is also the chance to eat whale at a nearby restaurant. It seems like a bizarre idea, but what are the ethical and culinary implications?

Should you eat whale meat? Reports on Iceland’s new retirement home for beluga whales note that, after viewing the animals – rescued from a Shanghai marine park – tourists can then visit a harbourside restaurant where they can dine on whale meat. Last week, Iceland resumed whaling after a three-year hiatus, killing a 20-metre fin whale on the country’s west coast.

The Iceland sanctuary has been set up with the assistance of the highly reputable Whale and Dolphin Conservation organisation. Danny Groves of WDC notes that only 3% of Iceland’s local population now eat whale. He points out that the country’s whale-watching industry far outweighs whaling economically. “The sanctuary ... should be championed as an alternative to the cruel practises of whale and dolphin hunting and the keeping of these animals in captivity,” he says.

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£250m deal allows official market access negotiations to begin, 20 years after beef was banned following the BSE outbreak

British beef will be back on the menu in China for the first time in more than 20 years, after it officially lifted the longstanding ban on exports from the UK.

More than two decades since the Chinese government first banned British beef after the BSE outbreak, the milestone is the culmination of several years of site inspections in the UK and negotiations between government officials.

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The Energy Equity Program Manager will provide leadership and strategic vision for the Energy Equity Program; develop, implement, and manage the Energy Equity program plan; and manage our highly-engaged Energy Equity Committee comprised of CEJA member and partner staff.

With Brexit looming our animal welfare standards are vulnerable. We’ve got welfare reform wrong in the past - how can we get it right in the future?

“When it came to the crunch the retailers let us down,” says Ian Campbell. When he took over the running of a Norfolk farm in the early 1990s, pig farming was a successful, relatively healthy British sector.

But within a few years a government ban on the use of gestation crates, combined with a rise in the value of the pound and a pig meat glut in Europe, would decimate the industry. The number of UK farmers would be nearly halved, while cheap meat from other countries with lower welfare requirements would come flooding in.

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A subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest refinery group, has made a 1.3-million yuan ($200,000) profit by swapping Shanghai CO2 permits it had saved as a result on government clampdown on overcapacity in the sector for cheaper carbon credits.

Joe Romm’s new book details the sticky messaging tactics successfully employed by Trump and others

Scientists like me – and really, everyone – can learn from President Donald Trump’s mastery of viral messaging.

True, he has turned the United States into a pariah nation, one reviled for ripping immigrant children from their parents and from withdrawing from our only real chance at stabilizing the climate, the Paris Accord.

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EU carbon prices maintained their recent level above €15 on Wednesday despite dipping after a weak UK auction that featured extra unsold volume from a previous failed sale.

The head of environmental markets and strategy at Australia’s biggest carbon project developer has left the company to set up his own offset advisory firm.

‘Disastrous decisions’ such as Heathrow expansion and rejection of Swansea tidal lagoon spark concern over government direction

Environmental campaigners and clean air groups have warned that the government’s green credentials are in tatters after a flurry of “disastrous decisions” that they say will be condemned by future generations.

The government’s plan to expand Heathrow won overwhelming backing in the Commons on Monday – with more than 100 Labour MPs joining Tory and SNP politicians to back the plan – despite grave concerns about its impact on air pollution and the UK’s carbon emissions.

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The Humboldt marten could soon be an endangered species in California as the weed industry threatens its habitat

Fierce yet adorable, Humboldt martens have been described as the west coast’s own Tasmanian devils. The biologist Tierra Curry compares the red-chested mammal to another small, tenacious creature: “It’s a kitten that thinks it’s a honey badger,” she said. “It will crawl right into a bee nest and eat the honeycomb and larvae, getting its face stung the whole time.”

But there are some dangers that the marten cannot withstand – such as marijuana cultivation.

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Global deforestation is on an upward trend, jeopardising efforts to tackle climate change and the massive decline in wildlife

The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year.

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The first national ‘tree champion’ is charged with reversing the fortunes of the country’s woodlands and beleaguered urban trees

England is running out of oak. The last of the trees planted by the Victorians are now being harvested, and in the intervening century so few have been grown – and fewer still grown in the right conditions for making timber – that imports, mostly from the US and Europe, are the only answer.

“We are now using the oaks our ancestors planted, and there has been no oak coming up to replace it,” says Mike Tustin, chartered forester at John Clegg and Co, the woodland arm of estate agents Strutt and Parker. “There is no oak left in England. There just is no more.”

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