Unprecedented growth in demands for water are threatening all major development goals, warns the latest edition of the UN World Water Development Report, Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk. It notes that rising food demand, rapid urbanisation and climate change … Read more
A Japanese scientist and music enthusiast has turned spiders’ webs into violin strings, revealing them to be stronger, more agile and able to produce a better sound than traditional string materials such as steel and nylon. Shigeyoshi Osaki spent over 30 years studying … Read more
The Australian government has announced it will establish the world’s largest protected marine area in the Coral Sea. The proposed Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve will cover almost one million square kilometres – one eighth the size of the Australian … Read more
Despite having 13 years to prepare, the cost of new EU regulations on hen cages is threatening to force many food manufacturers out of business. Britain’s supermarket shelves could be empty of key products within a month as an acute … Read more
Pressure from environmental groups has prompted US President Barack Obama to halt the progress of the Keystone XL Pipeline. If built, the pipeline would carry 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada’s Alberta oil sands to refineries along … Read more
Irish coastal counties Donegal and Sligo county councils have become the latest local authorities to ban fracking. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, extracts natural gas from pockets in underground rock. Water and chemicals are pumped underground at high pressures to fracture … Read more
Why is a mining magnate worth $US18bn buying huge chunks of Australian media? Environmentalists’ alarm bells are ringing across the Tasman with the news that Gina Rinehart, an Australian mining magnate, has become the single largest shareholder of Fairfax media. … Read more
The UK’s oldest environmental charity is to close because its income has been hit by cuts to local authority budgets. Environmental Protection UK, originally established in 1898 as the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, provides expertise, advice and analysis on air … Read more
Keeping a hen in a battery cage is now illegal in all 27 countries of the European Union. The ban on battery cages took effect on January 1 of this year. The date marks 13 years since the ban was … Read more
The world’s oceans have been experiencing enormous blooms of jellyfish, apparently caused by overfishing, declining water quality and rising sea temperatures. Now, scientists are trying to determine if these outbreaks could represent a “new normal” in which jellyfish increasingly supplant … Read more