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The environment is the new battleground for human rights, and activists are getting caught in the crossfire – particularly in Honduras, where two were killed last month

Since her mother’s murder a month ago, Bertha Isabel Zuniga Cáceres has scarcely had time to grieve. The 25-year-old student is adamant that her mother, Berta Cáceres Flores, will not become just one more Honduran environmental activist whose work was cut short by their assassination.

“Development in Honduras cannot continue happen at the expense of indigenous peoples and human rights,” says Zuñiga Cáceres, who met today with members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Honduran officials in Washington DC to call for an independent investigation into her mother’s killing. She also requested greater protection for her family and members of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, the human rights group her mother co-founded.

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BIG SURPRISE: The discovery of a monster black hole 17 billion times more massive than the sun in a modestly-sized galaxy, raises suspicions supermassive black holes may be more common than originally thought.

HUMAN COLONISATION: The colonisation of South America by prehistoric people occurred in two distinct phases of population growth that resembled an invasive species, a study reveals

SUPERNOVAE SHOWERS: The Earth was bombarded by debris from a series of stellar explosions with the closest supernova occurring about 2.3 million years ago, two new studies indicate.

Advertising watchdog dismisses complaint from US electric car maker about UK company’s green energy claims

Tesla, the US electric car and battery maker, has lost the latest round of a long-running spat with UK energy company Ecotricity.

The company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, had lodged a complaint with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about claims on Ecotricity’s website that it supplies “Britain’s greenest energy” and “greenest electricity”. On Wednesday, the ASA dismissed the complaint - agreeing with Ecotricity that the claims are correct.

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It’s been six months since the 5p charge was introduced for single-use plastic bags. So what have we learned?

It is six months since the introduction of the 5p charge for single-use plastic carrier bags in England, the last part of the UK to implement a charge. Here are six things we have learned since then:

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Conservationists say Indochine tigers are ‘functionally extinct’ as they launch action plan for reintroduction

Tigers are “functionally extinct” in Cambodia, conservationists conceded for the first time on Wednesday, as they launched a bold action plan to reintroduce the big cats to the kingdom’s forests.

Cambodia’s dry forests used to be home to scores of Indochinese tigers but the WWF said intensive poaching of both tigers and their prey had devastated the numbers of the big cats.

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Consultation on draft guidelines for developing emissions intensity benchmarks under the safeguard mechanism is now open. Comments close 6 May 2016.

Consultation on draft guidelines for developing emissions intensity benchmarks under the safeguard mechanism is now open. Comments close 6 May 2016.

CROSS-SPECIES TRANSPLANTATION: A team of US and German scientists has kept transplanted pig hearts alive in baboons, primate cousins of humans, for a record 2.5 years.

The Minister has approved the inclusion of the Natural Temperate Grassland of the South Eastern Highlands in the critically endangered category.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Dr Karl puts his finger on the pulse of research that suggests your heart can become stronger if it runs out of sync for a short while before its rhythm is restored.

Between 1984 and 2009 the weight of female bears in Ontario fell by over 10% while climate change meant they had 30 fewer days a year to hunt seal on ice

Three decades of melting sea ice has led to significant weight loss among the world’s southernmost population of polar bears, new data from Canadian researchers suggests.

“It’s a red flag,” said Martyn Obbard, a scientist with the Ontario provincial government and co-author of a recently published study in the journal Arctic Science.

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FOSSIL FIND: A tiny arthropod from 430 million years ago dubbed the 'Kite Runner' stashed its young in individual capsules tethered to its body.

This video showcases how companies can partner with farmers to plant trees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and earn Australian carbon credit units through Emissions Reduction Fund projects.

This video showcases how companies can partner with farmers to plant trees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and earn Australian carbon credit units through Emissions Reduction Fund projects.

DARK ROLE OF RITUALS: Elaborate ritual killings such as being crushed under a newly built canoe and decapitation after being rolled off a house laid the foundations of class-based structures in modern societies.

Study finds protecting a single type of herbivorous fish could be crucial to the recovery of reefs from damage related to climate change

Limiting the take of just one type of fish could protect coral reefs around the world from the most serious immediate impacts of climate change, researchers have found.

Studying Caribbean coral reefs, Peter Mumby and colleagues from the University of Queensland found that enforcing a rule limiting the fishing of a single type of herbivorous fish – parrotfish – would allow coral reefs there to continue to grow, despite bleaching and other impacts associated with climate change.

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Disposal and decommissioning of plants in EU’s 16 nuclear nations outstrips available funds by €120bn, European commission study reveals

Europe is facing a €253bn bill for nuclear waste management and plant decommissioning which outstrips available funds by €120bn, according to a major stock-take of the industry by the European commission.

The sum breaks down into €123bn for the decommissioning of old reactors and €130bn for the management of spent fuel, radioactive waste and deep geological disposal processes.

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Leak in pipeline being built by energy giant Spectra could lead to shutdown – or worse – at the New York state power station, experts say

Across a narrow swath cut by bulldozers and chainsaws through the woods of Westchester County, New York, triangular yellow flags are clotheslined between pairs of trees. The flags trace the eventual path of the gas pipeline that the energy giant Spectra is building through the area, escorted at times by police and harried by local residents worried by its proximity to a decaying nuclear power plant.

If that pipeline leaks or breaks, say experts, its contents could detonate and destroy the switchyard that sits 400ft from the gas line. Entergy, which runs the Indian Point power station, said the plant could be quickly shut down in such an event. Nuclear engineer Paul Blanch is not so sure. Blanch, who has previously consulted for Entergy and now assists an organization calling for the pipeline to be stopped, said that assertion is a best-case scenario. In the worst case, he said, the reactors could melt down. And he believes Entergy and Spectra have not fully considered that worst-case scenario.

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