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Rhinoceros calf responds to his name – video
Warren, a rhinoceros calf, responds to being called while on a walk with his carers at the Meyersdal Nature Estate in South Africa on Monday. Warren comes running back after being called by name and also accompanies some dogs on a trip around the sanctuary. The Meyersdal Nature Estate is run by Working with Rhinos, a charity dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating rhinoceros and indigenous wildlife from the area
Continue reading...Butterflies: a feast for more than eyes
Sandy, Bedfordshire What are they tasting, and what makes them dab their egg on one particular leaf above all others?
Day by day, summer has been eating its way through the nasturtium at the back door. Over the past fortnight, I have conducted my own leafwatch. Victorian naturalists used systematic, meticulous, studies to gain insights: I’m looking in my lunch break. Even so, during these half-hour snatches, I’ve discovered a tiny something that contradicts an authoritative textbook.
We call them cabbage whites, the butterflies with a taste for brassicas, but these insects have a fondness for nasturtiums too. One flits over the fence and breaks its zigzag course through the garden to home in. It circles and lands on leaf after leaf, wings whipped into a frenzy at the point of exact touchdown.
Continue reading...ScienceTalk: Jupiter's hot spot and the relationship between campfires and tuberculosis
National eNews - Do we need emergency action on climate?
Great Barrier Reef oil spill: foreign ship faces prosecution after 12-month hunt
Queensland authorities say they have identified the vessel that spilled up to 15 tonnes of oil off Cape Upstart in July 2015
An unnamed foreign ship faces prosecution over an oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef after a 12-month investigation by Queensland government agencies.
Maritime investigators claim they have identified the vessel that spilled up to 15 tonnes of oil in reef waters off Cape Upstart in July 2015, which washed up on mainland beaches and islands north of Townsville and triggered a response costing $1.5m.
Continue reading...NSW solar bonus scheme ends this year: what are your options?
Installation begins on 500kW solar array for Canberra Hospital
All the smart people are on our side, we just need a majority
Australia’s renewable energy policy is short sighted and creating problems
Solar Impulse’s biggest legacy will be in your home – not in the skies
Watch out for virtual utilities, virtual power plants
Energy minister right on renewables and climate, wrong on gas
BuildingIQ acquires core technology from CSIRO
Great Red 'Hot Spot' may explain the Jupiter's atmospheric mystery
Frydenberg says renewables not to blame for South Australia energy “crisis”
Antibiotic resistance: 'Snot wars' study yields new class of drugs
Roundabout arguments can't disguise Sydney's cycling laws are taking the public for a ride
Massive increases in fines for riding without a helmet or running a red light are just the latest in the city’s ignoble history of deciding cyclists are a problem
It’s almost five months since fines for various cycling infractions, including riding without a helmet, cycling dangerously or jumping a red light were massively increased in New South Wales. Some fines went up from $71 to $425 (£40 to £240). Riders were also obliged to carry ID. At the same time, a new law spelled out minimum passing distances drivers should give riders when they overtake bikes.
Are cyclists feeling much safer? It’s fair to say the impact has been mixed. In May it turned out that while police had by then energetically handed out 1,500 of the new fines to cyclists, mainly over helmet use, just four motorists had felt the force of the law for close overtakes. There were also reports of overzealous enforcement of the rules, including a dangerous cycling citation for someone trackstanding at a red light.
Continue reading...Jupiter's Great Red Spot 'roars with heat'
Time to say goodbye
George McRobie obituary
George McRobie, who has died aged 90, was the last surviving founding member of Practical Action, an international organisation harnessing technology to help developing countries. He was a close associate of the economist EF Schumacher (my late husband, known as Fritz, who was the author of the influential text Small Is Beautiful) and for many years they worked together, initially at the National Coal Board and then, in 1965, in setting up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), now known as Practical Action.
When Fritz died suddenly in 1977, George stepped in to become chairman of the organisation, and worked tirelessly to maintain the momentum they had generated. His contribution to both the green movement and the appropriate technology movement as a whole was immense. In 1981 George completed Small Is Possible, the last of Fritz’s trilogy of books, which laid out how the ideas and theories on sustainability in the first two books, Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed, could be applied to everyday life.
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