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Budget 2017: Funds for robotics and 5G research
Malta's Azure Window collapses into the sea
Invasive snakes threaten forests on Pacific island of Guam
Stop stalling on bike plans, Sadiq. Political timidity gets you nowhere
Cycle schemes have stagnated for 10 months, writes the former cycling commissioner. Will new cycling delegate Will Norman get London up to speed?
Under its first two mayors, London became important for the whole country as a leader in cycling. But Will Norman, Sadiq Khan’s new walking and cycling commissioner, starts work with the capital’s cyclists in a gloomy mood. Not just because of the deaths of three cyclists – and two pedestrians – in a single week last month, but because of the last 10 months’ stagnation in what was previously Britain’s most active programme to promote the bike.
I ran that programme for Khan’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, so perhaps I’m biased. But the figures aren’t biased. Over eight years, cycling increased by 53%. Not bad: but on the new central London segregated superhighways, which we opened in May, we saw the same percentage rise in six months.
Climate change impacts are already hitting us, say Europeans
New polling study also shows support for financial penalties for nations that refuse to be part of Paris climate deal, as Donald Trump has threatened
The citizens of four major European countries think the impacts of climate change such as severe floods and storms are already affecting them, according to a major new polling study.
The research dispels the idea that global warming is widely seen as a future problem, and also shows strong support for action to tackle global warming, including subsidies for clean energy and big financial penalties for nations that refuse to be part of the international climate deal signed in Paris in 2015 – as US president Donald Trump has threatened. There was also strong support for giving financial aid to developing nations to cope with the impacts of climate change.
Continue reading...Joking apart, the great tit is a born survivor
Wenlock Edge Since the 1960s the great tit population has doubled. These dapper but tough birds are becoming a global power
Great tits will take over the world. You see my problem already – it’s the name. Unless you can disassociate from the Carry On innuendo of “tit”, this bird is always going to be a joke. It supposedly gets its name from titmouse: in Old English, tit means small and “mouse” is a corruption of māse, a bird name of Germanic origins.
There is a theatrical prettiness about great tits: the shiny black head with flashing white cheeks, flamboyantly dapper, green-backed, yellow-breasted, with black tie and cleavage stripe. Their twin-syllabic song sounds like a drunk pushing a rusty wheelbarrow. But the music hall stage persona ends there.
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