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The hands could become available on the NHS bringing life-changing improvements for patients.

Federal MPs are making the journey back to Canberra for what promises to be an intense week of Parliament.

Exclusive: Walking or cycling to school is better for children’s health as cars are ‘boxes collecting toxic gases’ says David King

• Opinion: Smoking in cars is banned. But children still inhale toxic fumes in backseats

Children are at risk of dangerous levels of air pollution in cars because exposure to toxic air is often far higher inside than outside vehicles, a former government chief scientific adviser has warned.

Prof Sir David King, writing for the Guardian, says walking or cycling to school would be much better for children’s health. The warning comes as the UK government faces a third legal defeat for failing to tackle the country’s illegal levels of air pollution. Air pollution is known to damage children’s developing lungs but recent research also indicates it harms children’s ability to learn at school and may damage their DNA.

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Epping Forest Yellow rattle steals nutrients from grasses, releasing butterfly-friendly plants from the oppression of shade

The poet John Clare crossed here 180 years ago seeking the “furze and clouds” of Buckhurst Hill, but I’m happy to linger on Whitehall Plain amid its dazzling drifts of buttercups. Natural grasslands are now rare in southern England – 98% of them were destroyed in the 50 years after 1945 – and too often seen as easily replicated green space. Not here in Epping Forest, though. Beneath its surface gloss of buttercups, this old pasture, which straddles London’s boundary with Essex, is complex and dynamic.

Related: Yellow rattle: the meadow-maker's helper

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A tree planting project transforms a Bega Valley landscape; a young couple grinds out a living off just eight hectares; we turn unwanted fruit and veg into edible powder; and meet four-year-old dog trialler Alyssa Brown.

The short answer is, not a lot. Finkel promises savings of $92 a year by 2030, but most customer bills are going to jump $300 a year next month. Nothing much will change until utilities can match the cost of new technologies, rather than hiding behind regulatory barriers.

Dr Alejandro Hernández Cárdenas has developed a new technique to help identify corpses.

Elon Musk says all Tesla EV supercharging stations are being switched to solar and battery storage – "almost all" will disconnect from grid.

Frydenberg and Turnbull are trying to convince far right that coal will be OK under Clean Energy Target. But the reality is that wind and solar are cheaper, so any serious push to climate targets will spell doom for coal generation.

The earliest known script was a tool developed to help run the economy.

Di Natale says the Finkel report gets Australia no where near the temperature target commitment made in Paris and provides a long term lifeline to coal and gas.

Originally published in the Guardian on 17 June 1967

DARTMOOR: The best way to see the country of the high moorland is, I am now convinced, from horseback. A docile eight-year-old mare carried me for three hours over Holne Moor and along the thickly wooded valley of the Dart and provided a morning of great delight. Early in the ride, descending from the moor to the river valley, we started a buzzard from the heather. The bird rose into the air and crossed the valley in gracious soaring and gliding. The silhouette of the buzzard is particularly appropriate to its function as a bird of prey – a menacing dark brown shape with broad wings upturned at the tips. Its loud mewing call which echoed in the confined valley was an eerie warning to small creatures on the ground.

Related: Dilemma on the moor: The truth about pony slaughter on Dartmoor

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Engineers call them nano-particles, and close to congested roads and busy airports, we inhale them in astonishing numbers

In 1996, the Scottish scientist Anthony Seaton put forward a new theory about the health problems from modern air pollution. Throughout our evolution, we have always lived with dusts, but Seaton suggested that the problems from modern air pollution were due to the sheer number of tiny pollution particles that we are now exposed to.

Related: Time for the oil industry to snuff out its flares

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The world’s biggest companies, from Starbucks to Victoria’s Secret, use prisoners to work on their products. Is it helpful work experience or sheer exploitation?

We are all, at heart, ethical consumers. I’ve never met anyone actively looking for a dose of slave labour with their teabags, window frames or underwear.

71% of companies surveyed in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery

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Use of wrasse to combat parasite threatens natural stocks, say experts

Salmon farmers have been accused of playing dirty by using fish caught in the wild to clean lice from Scottish fish farms. Marine conservation experts say that shipping tonnes of English-caught wrasse a year – to tackle lice infestations in salmon pens north of the border – is endangering natural stocks. English anglers have also warned wrasse is becoming harder and harder to find in local waters.

However, salmon farmers have rejected the charge. They say the use of wrasse as a “cleaner” fish is part of a long-term plan to replace chemicals – which are currently administered to pens to control lice infestations – with sustainable, biological controls.

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Mangers of Prospect Park in New York are happy with their new employee.

South Uist The dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another wildflower species comes to the fore on land left to lie fallow

The continuation of traditional crofting methods ensures that the island’s machair is still celebrated for the spectacular profusion of wildflowers that occurs in the summer. Yellows, whites, purples and blues are all present, though the dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another species comes to the fore on the land left to lie fallow. But where, after their period of rest, different areas are put back under cultivation, there are other changes in colour.

This spring the grassland down at the end of the track that reaches the sea came under the plough, its green replaced by an expanse of pale open ground. Stretches of machair ready for planting are nothing like prepared fields seen elsewhere in Britain.

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Marine mammal experts make ‘really tough decision’ after rough sea conditions hinder rescue attempts

• Australian volunteers help keep animal breathing – video

A juvenile humpback whale that has been beached on the New South Wales mid-north coast for more than a day will be euthanised.

Rough sea conditions had put a hold on attempts to rescue the whale on Sataurday.

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Finkel's proposed Clean Energy Target could solidify long-term investment in renewable energy, but investor certainty can only be delivered by taking into account the 2°C target.

The fourth largest ice shelf in Antarctica, known as Larson C, has developed a crack 180km long. It is only a matter of time before a giant iceberg peels away and floats free in the Antarctic circumpolar current.