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London's Bank junction closed to most traffic as part of new safety scheme
Cyclists hail experimental scheme – that sees the dangerous intersection closed to all but buses, cyclists and pedestrians – as a turning point
Bank junction, one of London’s most dangerous intersections, was closed this week to all but buses, and people on bikes and foot, from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, in an 18-month experimental scheme that could be as ground breaking as New York’s Times Square or Paris’s Left Bank.
In 2015 Ying Tao was hit from behind by a lorry and killed as she cycled across the six-armed crossroads. Cyclists make up to 50% of Bank traffic during peak times, and from 2010-14, 46 cyclists were injured at the junction, six seriously. There were also eight serious pedestrian casualties in that time.
Continue reading...Shorten: Recognition first, then treaty
Calls to reform food system: 'Factory farming belongs in a museum'
Stop the Machine aims to put an end to methods of farming that are endangering biodiversity and wildlife the world over
We can feed an extra 4 billion people a year if we reject the bloated and wasteful factory farming systems that are endangering our planet’s biodiversity and wildlife, said farming campaigner Philip Lymbery on Monday night, launching a global campaign to Stop the Machine.
At present, 35% of the world’s cereal harvest and most of its soya meal is fed to industrially reared animals rather than directly to humans. This is a “wasteful and inefficient practice” because the grain-fed animals contribute much less back in the form of milk, eggs and meat than they consume, according to Lymbery, the chief executive of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). “The food industry seems to have been hijacked by the animal feed industry,” he said.
How did whales become so large? Scientists dive into marine mystery
Changes in food distribution and not falling ocean temperatures could hold key to shift towards giant lengths
The blue whale has a body the length of a jet airliner, a heart the size of a car, and a tongue the same weight as an elephant.
Now researchers say they might have solved the mystery of why baleen whales – a group that includes these blue beasts, the largest animals on the planet – became so large.
Continue reading...Salad days soon over: consumers throw away 40% of bagged leaves
Exclusive: Britons fail to eat 178m bags of salad every year, say Tesco and government waste body Wrap, in study highlighting food waste
Britons throw away 40% of the bagged salad they buy every year, according to the latest data, with 37,000 tonnes – the equivalent of 178m bags – going uneaten every year.
The figures from the government’s waste advisory body Wrap are being published on Wednesday by the supermarket giant Tesco to highlight that prepared salads are still among the UK’s most wasted household foods. Past studies have shown that the average UK family throws away £700 of food each year.
Continue reading...Meet 'Big Don', the 90kg rescue turtle released on World Turtle Day – video
Crowds cheer as ‘Big Don’, a massive sea turtle, is released off the Florida Keys on World Turtle Day after being rehabilitated from injuries from an encounter with a fishing line. The 200-pound (91 kilogram) loggerhead turtle was nursed back to health with antibiotics, vitamins and a healthy diet of squid and fish
Continue reading...Consumer bills to jump as networks score court victory over regulator
The cuckoo is back and all's right with the world
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This is the cow parsley moment, its blossom making foamy bow waves against hawthorn hedges along the road
The lanes are luminous with the white pulse of May: cow parsley, hawthorn, hogweed, garlic, stichwort. In fields there are pale lambs and dandelion clocks and stands of horse chestnut in candle. White on green. Green on white.
It is evening and the birds are fractious. I am listening to an old story so nearly forgotten that its retelling sounds strange and new.
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