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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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Native wildlife and vegetation will benefit from the marriage of the science of environmental water management and local Aboriginal knowledge, as part of watering wetlands on Tar-Ru Lands near Wentworth New South Wales.

SMOKING RISK: Women who smoke while pregnant may alter the DNA of their developing foetus, according to a large international study of more than 6,000 women and children.

Long-tailed tit returns to the top 10 most commonly seen garden birds for the first time in seven years, results from the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch show

A mild winter has boosted the number of small birds visiting UK gardens, with the long-tailed tit returning to the top 10 most commonly seen species for the first time in seven years, according to results from the world’s largest garden wildlife survey.

Recorded sightings of the tiny, sociable tit rose by 44% on 2015 figures and the species was seen in more than a quarter of participants’ gardens. Other small garden bird species that are thought to have benefitted from the warmer weather include the great tit and coal tit.

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EXOPLANET MAPPING: Astronomers have, for the first time, mapped a nearby 'super-Earth' exoplanet to find that one hemisphere is almost completely molten rock, while the other half is almost completely solid.

HUMAN EVOLUTION: The disappearance of so-called hobbits on the Indonesian island of Flores is pushed back to 50,000 years ago after excavations revealed flaws in the original dating of the controversial species of primitive humans.

DROUGHT RISK: Extreme droughts could lead to widespread death of eucalypts from embolisms, say researchers.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Your life depends on the regular beat of your heart. Dr Karl explains how this mighty four-stage pump works.

HUMAN EVOLUTION: Interbreeding between Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans may have produced males with reduced fertility, an analysis of the genome of present-day people suggests.

With the ice cover down to 14.52m sq km, scientists now believe the Arctic is locked onto a course of continually shrinking sea ice

A record expanse of Arctic sea never froze over this winter and remained open water as a season of freakishly high temperatures produced deep – and likely irreversible – changes on the far north.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said on Monday that the sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 14.52m sq km (5.607m sq miles) on 24 March, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

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Herd ‘coming home’ under treaty between North American tribes that seeks to return bison from Canada to Montana

Descendants of a bison herd captured and sent to Canada more than a century ago will be relocated to a Montana Native American reservation next month, in what tribal leaders bill as a homecoming for a species emblematic of their traditions.

The shipment of animals from Alberta’s Elk Island national park to the Blackfeet reservation follows a 2014 treaty among tribes in the US and Canada. That agreement aims to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions once roamed.

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While the 21-year-old founder of the Ocean Cleanup Project has succeeded in raising over $2m for a device that would extract plastic from the ocean, critics say the high-cost initiative is misdirected

Last year, nonprofit foundation The Ocean Cleanup hit a milestone en route to its goal of deploying a large, floating structure to pull plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The organization issued a press release announcing it had completed a reconnaissance expedition that would pave the way for a June 2016 test of its prototype. With the help of $2.2m in crowdfunding, 21-year-old founder Boyan Slat announced his plans to deploy 100 kilometers of passive floating barriers in an effort to clean up 42% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s plastic pollution in 10 years.

Despite considerable online enthusiasm for the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They question whether the design will work as described and survive the natural forces of the open ocean, how it will affect sea life, and whether this is actually the best way to tackle the problem of ocean plastic – or merely a distraction from the bigger problem of pollution prevention. Many have also expressed concern about the lack of an environmental impact statement prior to such a large push for funding.

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Time spent playing in parks, woods and fields has shrunk dramatically due to lack of green spaces, digital technology and parents’ fears

Three-quarters of UK children spend less time outside than prison inmates, according to a new survey revealing the extent to which time playing in parks, wood and fields has shrunk. A fifth of the children did not play outside at all on an average day, the poll found.

Experts warn that active play is essential to the health and development of children, but that parents’ fears, lack of green spaces and the lure of digital technology is leading youngsters to lead enclosed lives.

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Former NASA climate director James Hansen and a team of scientists claim a mechanism in the climate could rapidly raise sea levels by metres

James Hansen’s name looms large over any history that will likely be written about climate change.

Whether you look at the hard science, the perils of political interference or modern day activism, Dr Hansen is there as a central character.

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Application on ecological sustainability - call for public comments open from 31 March 2016 until 29 April 2016.

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is seeking comments on the proposal to list this as an endangered ecological community. The public consultation period will be open until COB Thursday 12 May 2016; however earlier responses would be...

SPORT SCIENCE: Cricketers who hold the bat the 'wrong way round' are seven times more likely to become professional batsmen, according to a new study.

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is seeking comments on the proposal to list the Illawarra and south coast lowland grassy woodland ecological community as a critically endangered ecological community. Consultation period closes...

SHIFTING AXIS: Ice deposits that formed in craters on opposite sides of the Moon three billion years ago indicate it may have once spun on a different axis.