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Global food policy needs to shift way from focusing on feeding people enough calories to nourishing people, say leading food experts.

Analysis of black organic fragments found in the Sutton Hoo boat burial reveals they are bitumen from Syria.

From an Arctic expedition to working in a studio in the school of biology and environmental science at University College Dublin, artist Siobhan McDonald collaborates with researchers to broach subjects at the edges of current scientific knowledge

• Crystalline, curated by Helen Carey, will open at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, on 26 January 2017
  

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The Russian space agency Roscosmos says it has lost contact with an unmanned cargo ship heading for the International Space Station.

Energy and climate targets are ‘well within reach’ but the transport sector is lagging behind

EU countries are on track to meet their 2020 targets for renewable energy and emissions cuts but could fall short of ambitious longer-term goals, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Thursday.

“The EU’s 2020 targets on energy and climate are now well within reach,” EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx said.

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Environmentally friendly groups at Companies vs Climate Change said they will work to make sure Trump won’t undo all the progress the country has made

From his claim that global warming was a gigantic hoax masterminded by China to his promise to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris agreement, Donald Trump’s surprise election win was widely decried by those who feared that recent progress in tackling climate change was about to come undone.

Related: Donald Trump presidency a 'disaster for the planet', warn climate scientists

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Proposals by the Trump administration to roll back US environmental regulations are likely to foment opposition, say analysts.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, is evacuated from the South Pole after falling ill.

The last Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is said to have died in 1936 and was declared extinct in 1986. The Thylacine Awareness Group claims there have been 5,000 reported sightings of thylacines in the past 80 years, however, they do acknowledge video evidence is ambiguous

• Footage courtesy of Thylacine Awareness Group YouTube channel
• Tasmanian tiger sightings: ‘I represent 3,000 people who have been told they’re nuts’
  

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Efforts to curb tree clearing have failed, the government admits in its update to Unesco on work to save the world heritage site

Australia needs to work faster on lifting water quality to save the Great Barrier Reef, according to its first progress report to Unesco since the world heritage site was spared an “in-danger” listing.

The report admitted that a key plank of Australia’s conservation plan – land-clearing reforms in Queensland to staunch water pollution – had failed. It also highlighted climate change, which is the biggest threat to the reef and led to the worst recorded coral bleaching in its history this year, but which the plan makes no attempt to address.

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Waitrose, John Lewis and Argos among the first users of a new biomethane fuel for gas-powered trucks, reports BusinessGreen

Gas-powered lorries laden with Christmas parcels are set to have a lighter carbon impact this season thanks to the launch today of a new renewable fuel from CNG Fuels.

Retailers including John Lewis, Argos and Waitrose have already confirmed some of their long-distance lorries will run on the green gas – a renewable biomethane fuel derived from food waste – which is up to 40% cheaper than diesel and emits 70% less carbon dioxide, CNG Fuel says.

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Through the Export-Import Bank, the Obama administration has spent nearly $34bn on dirty energy plants in countries from India to Australia to South Africa

Seemingly little connects a community in India plagued by toxic water, a looming air pollution crisis in South Africa and a new fracking boom that is pockmarking Australia. And yet there is a common thread: American taxpayer money.

Through the US Export-Import Bank, Barack Obama’s administration has spent nearly $34bn supporting 70 fossil fuel projects around the world, work by Columbia Journalism School’s Energy and Environment Reporting Project and the Guardian has revealed.

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Leaves and branches can slow air currents and cause pollutants to settle, says health watchdog

City trees, popularly thought to remove pollutants and improve urban life, may also increase the amount of foul air that people breathe, says the UK body which gives independent health guidance to national and local government.

“Leaves and branches slow air currents, causing pollutants to settle. They may also act as sinks for particulates and chemicals that may have direct or indirect effects in air quality. Air quality [under trees] may deteriorate at street level near vehicles,” says the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) in new draft guidance for local government to combat air pollution.

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Unchecked global warming is greatest threat to 21st-century security where mass migration could be ‘new normal’, say senior military

Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”.

The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.

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Wolsingham, Weardale Most hedgerow blackthorns are brutally trimmed but these small trees, unpruned and unharvested by birds, are laden with fruit

In early May, this blackthorn thicket had been smothered in the most spectacular display of blossom that I had ever seen and I made a mental note to return in autumn, to see if it had fulfilled its promise.

I’d intended to return sooner. Now it felt like the first real day of winter, and my breath turned to steam in the icy wind. In the shade of the trees beside the beck, where deep shadows would linger all day, fallen leaves were fringed with frost crystals.

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If Western Power shares drop as distributed solar and storage leave grid assets stranded, mums and dads could be left footing the bill.

Record low solar panel prices, and the ratcheting-down or removal of policy levers, are sparking a boom in Australia’s residential and commercial rooftop solar markets – but also prompting warnings to consumers to avoid the lure of cheap and nasty products, and installers.

Start to tourism season prompts environment minister to override federal law and allow the nets in NSW

Josh Frydenberg overrode federal law to give the go-ahead to lethal shark nets in northern New South Wales to save the local tourist industry and nipper clubs.

The environment minister has argued that there was a “national interest” in installing the controversial nets because, with the tourism season about to start, surf shops were experiencing decreased sales and nipper clubs had fewer registrations.

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Investment in new coal-fired power plants appears off the agenda in Western Europe after experience of three new Dutch plants.

A tale of two energy ministers is emerging in Canberra. The community is looking for politicians to champion renewables in the face of fossil fuel sector attacks on South Australia.