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'Frictionless' EU trade is vital post-Brexit for UK farming to survive
Farming union president Meurig Raymond takes veiled swipe at Liam Fox’s ‘cheap food policy’ at NFU conference
Trade with the EU after Brexit needs to be “frictionless” if the UK’s food and farming sectors are to survive the transition, the president of the National Farmers Union has said at the opening of the NFU’s conference.
Meurig Raymond, who farms a large acreage of mixed arable and livestock in Wales, said: “We must have frictionless trade with the EU. Everything else, including the final shape of any domestic agricultural policy, is dependent on that.”
Continue reading...'Sloppy and careless': courts call out Trump blitzkrieg on environmental rules
A cascade of courtroom standoffs are beginning to slow, and even reverse, the EPA rollbacks thanks to the administration’s ‘disregard for the law’
In its first year in office, the Trump administration introduced a solitary new environmental rule aimed at protecting the public from pollution. It was aimed not at sooty power plants or emissions-intensive trucks, but dentists.
Every year, dentists fill Americans’ tooth cavities with an amalgam that includes mercury. Around 5m tons of mercury, a dangerous toxin that can taint the brain and the nervous system, are washed away from dental offices down drains each year.
Continue reading...Scientists race to explore Antarctic marine life revealed by giant iceberg
British Antarctic Survey is trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf
A team of international scientists is due to set off for the world’s biggest iceberg on Wednesday, fighting huge waves and the encroaching Antarctic winter, in a mission aiming to answer fundamental questions about the impact of climate change in the polar regions.
The scientists, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula.
Continue reading...Roman boxing gloves unearthed by Vindolanda dig
It's time football started to take cycling seriously | Robin Ireland
Few clubs cater for fans who choose to cycle to the ground, but simple changes could help reduce traffic jams and pollution on match days
I am a football fan and I am a cyclist. These identities do not need to be mutually exclusive – so why is it often such a challenge to go to the game by bike?
I support Norwich City and I live in Liverpool, which is the first hurdle. Liverpool is 238 miles away from Norwich, and the direct train takes more than five hours. Because of this, I have pretty much given up on home games.
Continue reading...Problem-solving could be key to grey squirrels' success, study finds
Research in UK shows invasive species bests native red squirrels in complex tasks
The ability to solve problems may explain why grey squirrels are thriving at the expense of native red ones in the UK, research suggests.
Wild greys and reds were presented with an easy task (opening a transparent lid) and a difficult version (a more complex process of pushing and pulling levers) to get hazelnuts.
Continue reading...Now you see us: how casting an eerie glow on fish can help count and conserve them
Country diary: a kind of heaven in avian form
Shapwick, Somerset: Hundreds of thousands of starlings reduced by distance and number to something like smoke
In any other place a great white egret passing overhead would have commanded all our attention. The national breeding total for this species was just seven pairs in 2017. Here, however, at dusk it was an incidental detail, a stately white shape rowing quietly through the binoculars’ orbit, as we focused on something far more captivating.
Continue reading...Frydenberg, IPA trolling renewables on ABC’s Q&A – again
Origins of land plants pushed back in time
Tesla ‘virtual power plant’ second best to real people power
Regulator cites Loy Yang B coal unit failure for price surge in January
Redflow simplifies Large Scale Battery design
Proposed solar farms could meet the RET single-handed
Tesla battery + solar now “significantly cheaper” than grid power
World’s first floating wind farm performing better than expected
Climate change no threat to cheap wind power – except in Sunshine State
Faster reproduction could hold key to saving critically endangered frog
Researchers believe introducing frogs to lower elevation areas would help them reach sexual maturity earlier
Researchers are hoping to increase the population of one of Australia’s most endangered frogs by helping them reach sexual maturity earlier.
The number of wild northern corroboree frogs, which are only found in cold, mountainous areas of the ACT and New South Wales, has been in sharp decline, mostly due to chytrid fungus. The fungus causes an infectious disease that is killing frogs around the world. There are only 20 of the small black and yellow striped frogs left living in the wild in the ACT and fewer than 1,000 in NSW.