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LONGi Solar announced that the independent third-party certification test organization, the company's 60-cell PERC module achieved a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 20.41%, a new world record.

Tesla among 19 groups bidding for contract to build a big battery in Darwin that will reduce the need for back-up gas generators, and smooth the way for more solar PV in the Northern Territory.

People in high-risk tsunami areas could be helped by an alarm system devised by Cardiff scientists.

UK survey finds 532 types – far more than older textbooks suggest should be out

It’s been said that spring is coloured by flowers, while the colour of winter is only in the imagination.

Not so for intrepid botanists who discovered 532 species of wildflowers in bloom across Britain and Ireland around New Year’s Day.

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Two monkeys named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua have become the first primates to be cloned.

Scientists work out how prey can escape much faster predators when hunting in the African savannah.

A new-build programme would create an intolerable burden on communities into the far future, writes Andrew Blowers; while Rose Heaney wonders why our abundant renewable energy sources are being overlooked

In 1976, Lord Flowers pronounced that there should be no further commitment to nuclear energy unless it could be demonstrated that long-lived highly radioactive wastes could be safely contained for the indefinite future. Ever since, efforts to find a suitable site for a geological disposal facility have been rejected by communities (Wanted: community willing to host a highly radioactive waste dump in their district, 22 January).

There is, therefore, little evidence to support the government’s claim that “it is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations”. Deep disposal may be the eventual long-term solution but demonstrating a safety case, finding suitable geology and a willing community are tough challenges and likely to take a long time. The search for a disposal site diverts attention from the real solution for the foreseeable future, which is to ensure the safe and secure management of the unavoidable legacy wastes that have to be managed. It is perverse to compound the problem by a new-build programme that will result in vastly increased radioactivity from spent fuel and other highly radioactive wastes which will have to be stored indefinitely at vulnerable sites scattered around our coasts.

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Shark conservationists see donations rise after claims the US president hates the animals.

US firm SpaceX conducts a key test ahead of the debut flight of its new rocket - the Falcon Heavy.

Two monkeys cloned using the 'Dolly the sheep' technique could bring the world a step closer to human cloning.

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.