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Nikki Towell doesn't let her wheelchair stop her working as a wool classer; we grow Asian vegies at Boon Luck Farm; train wild brumbies in the NT; and climb trees in Tasmania.

The chief scientists who worked on the spacecraft react after it plunged into Saturn's atmosphere.

Hundreds of volunteers gather to prepare soup as part of global movement to inspire action against food waste

Visitors to a community food market and bar in south London on Friday were presented with an unusual combination of pleasures: a soup disco.

Volunteers and customers at Mercato Metropolitano in Elephant and Castle gathered to chop vegetables and tear basil leaves from their stalks while professional chefs directed them and DJs from the nightclub Ministry of Sound spun records in the background.

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Rescued Sumatran orangutans, a stranded manatee, and brown bears near Ljubljana, Slovenia, are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Defra welcomes European vote which aims to secure long-term sustainability of North Sea fish stocks

The European parliament has voted on a series of measures likely to reduce overfishing in the North Sea which will affect the UK’s fishing fleet until Brexit takes effect and potentially beyond.

The vote ensures that there will be limits to fishing quotas so that they cannot exceed levels regarded as sustainable by scientists. The outcome had been in doubt as MEPs voted on Thursday, but several amendments aimed at watering down the proposals were rejected.

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Author and academic Nancy MacLean says cynicism about the motives of public servants, including government-backed climate scientists, can be traced to a group of neoliberals and their ‘toxic’ ideas

You’ll have heard that line of argument about cancer scientists, right?

The one where they’re just in it for the government grant money and that they don’t really want to find a cure, because if they did they’d be out of a job?

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One of the greatest botanical collections of all time grew out of the plant specimens found in Kamay Botany Bay in 1770. These collection sites are now our 112th National Heritage place.

The Department today entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands on how our two countries jointly manage and research our shipwrecks, sunken relics and other underwater cultural heritage.

The Department today entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands on how our two countries jointly manage and research our shipwrecks, sunken relics and other underwater cultural heritage.

Redmires, Sheffield Scored by wind and rain there is something square-jawed about the stone known as Stump John

The Head Stone stands, like a muted version of Easter Island’s moai, on grouse moors west of Sheffield, looking down on traffic hurrying along the A57. A fractured block of gritstone seamed and scored by wind and rain, there is something square-jawed about it, although it has other names: Stump John, for John Priestley of Overstones Farm, a place literally “over stones”, on the far side of Stanage; and Cock Crowing Stone, possibly for the male grouse that advertise their wares from its summit.

Related: Farewell to an ancient landmark

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Bacteria cultured from a sample of air in a public building. Khamkhlai Thanet/Shutterstock.com

Humans are transporting trillions of bacteria around the world via tourism, food and shipping, without stopping to think about the potential damage being caused to bacterial ecosystems.

When we think about endangered species, we typically think of charismatic mammals such as whales, tigers or pandas. But the roughly 5,500 mammal species on Earth is a relatively paltry number – and it pales in comparison with bacteria, of which there are at least a million different species.

Despite their vast numbers, little research has been done to understand the impact that modern human practices have on these tiny organisms, which have an important influence on many facets of our lives.

Read more: Microbes: the tiny sentinels that can help us diagnose sick oceans.

In an article published today in Science, my colleagues and I explore how humans move bacteria around the globe, and what this might mean for our own welfare.

Human effects on our planet are so profound that we have entered a new geological age, called the Anthropocene. One of the key features of this new world is the way we affect other organisms. We have altered the distribution of animals and plants, creating problems with feral animals, weeds and other invasive species. We have caused many species to decline so much that they have gone extinct.

There are also grounds for concern over the way humans are affecting bacterial species, and in many cases we are causing the same type of problems that affect larger organisms.

Bacterial population structures are definitely changing, and bacterial species are being transported to new locations, becoming the microbial equivalent of weeds or feral animals. Perhaps some bacteria are even on their way to extinction, although we don’t really have enough information to be certain yet.

How do they get around?

Let’s start by talking about sewage and manure. Animal and human faeces release gut microorganisms back into the environment, and these organisms are vastly different from the organisms that would have been released 100 years ago. This is because humans and our domesticated animals – cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens – now comprise 35 times more biomass than all the wild mammals on land.

Human sewage and livestock manure contain very specific subsets of microbes, meaning those populations are enriched and replenished in the environment, at the expense of the native microbes. Sewage and manure also distribute enormous quantities of genes that confer resistance to antibiotics and disinfectants.

Waste water, sewage sludge and manure are used extensively in agriculture. So gut organisms from humans and agricultural animals go on to contaminate foodstuffs. These food products, along with their bacteria, are then shipped around the world.

Then there are the 1.2 billion international tourist movements per year, which also unintentionally transport gut microorganisms to exotic locations. For instance, tourism can rapidly spread antibiotic resistant pathogens between continents.

It’s not just humans and their food that cause concern – there are also vast quantities of microbe-laden materials that move along with us. Each year, roughly 100 million tonnes of ballast water are discharged from ships in US ports alone. This movement of microorganisms via shipping is changing the distribution of bacteria in the oceans. It also transports pathogens such as cholera.

Humans also move vast quantities of sand, soil and rock. It may seem hard to believe, but it is estimated that human activities are now responsible for moving more soil than all natural processes combined. As every gram of soil contains roughly a billion bacteria,this amounts to huge numbers of microorganisms being moved around the planet.

The fallout

Why should we care if bacteria are being spread to new places? Besides the obvious potential for spreading diseases to humans, animals and crops, there are also hidden dangers.

Microorganisms are invisible to the naked eye, so we tend to ignore them and don’t necessarily appreciate their role in how the planet operates. Bacteria are crucial to biogeochemistry – the cycling of nutrients and other chemicals through ecosystems.

Read more: Your microbiome is shared with your family… including your pets.

For instance, before humans invented a way to make fertiliser industrially, every single nitrogen atom in our proteins and DNA had to be chemically captured by a bacterial cell before it could be taken up by plants and then enter the human food chain. The oxygen we breathe is largely made by photosynthetic microorganisms in the oceans (and not mainly by rainforests, as is commonly believed).

Our effects on bacteria have the potential to alter these fundamental bacterial functions. It is vital to gain a better understanding of how humans are affecting microbes’ distribution, their abundance, and their life-sustaining processes. Although bacteria are invisible, we overlook them at our peril.

Michael Gillings receives funding from the Australian Research Council

AEMO, like Finkel, provided Turnbull with a launch pad to push for a cleaner, smarter, cheaper and more reliable grid. Instead, the Coalition pined for traditional and outdated technologies. It's time to bust a few myths about baseload and blackouts.

Centennial Coal, whose licence was ruled invalid after its Springvale mine was found to be polluting Sydney’s water, wants matter resolved in two weeks

The miner that supplies Energy Australia’s Mount Piper coal power station with coal has sought an urgently expedited court hearing to establish how it can continue to operate without a valid licence.

But Centennial Coal did so without making a formal application for an early hearing and without evidence supporting the need for it, leaving the judge appearing sceptical of the claim.

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Extreme weather presents many threats to electricity systems – particularly on centralised grids, where outages can ripple down the line. But can we do better?

The end is near for US-led space mission as it flies towards a fiery impact with the ringed planet.

Despite federal government inertia, there is the potential for industry and community to influence the direction of energy policy. Here's how it might be done.

British generator Drax to build 200MW battery storage project – at one of Europe’s largest coal-fired power plants.

The Australian Petroleum Statistics provide statistics on petroleum production, refinery inputs and outputs, sales and stocks of petroleum products, and prices.

Cassini's about to crash into Saturn, but here's what it's achieved over the last two decades.

Exclusive: EU’s food safety watchdog recommended that glyphosate was safe but pages of report were identical to application from pesticide maker

The European food safety authority (Efsa) based a recommendation that a chemical linked to cancer was safe for public use on an EU report that copied and pasted analyses from a Monsanto study, the Guardian can reveal.

Glyphosate is the core ingredient in Monsanto’s $4.75bn (£3.5bn) a year RoundUp weedkiller brand and a battle over its relicensing has split EU countries, with a final decision on its authorisation expected in early November.

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