• UK promises £3bn for green tech amid climate cash disagreements

    Britain will provide £3bn over five years, specifically to support the roll-out of sustainable infrastructure and new green technologies for the Global South, such as for drought-resistant agriculture. The £3bn includes support for a new £200m Climate Innovation Facility. According to the UK government, the scheme represents a “doubling” of UK support for climate projects compared with the previous five-year period. “I want to see the UK’s green industrial revolution go global,” said Johnson, as he opened the conference . “The pace of change on clean technology and infrastructure is incredible, but no country should be left behind in the race to save our planet.” “The climate has often been a silent victim of economic growth and progress, but the opposite should now be true. Through the…

  • Smart motorways protesters carry coffins through London

    Around 50 demonstrators marched to Parliament Square earlier today (Monday) to demand a ban on so-called 'all-lane running' (ALR) motorways, which can convert the hard shoulder into a live traffic lane as road conditions demand. There have been mounting concerns about the idea, following several fatal accidents involving stationary vehicles being hit from behind. The protest action was led by Claire Mercer, whose husband Jason Mercer died on a stretch of the M1 without a hard shoulder. Mr Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, died near Sheffield when a lorry crashed into their vehicles, which had stopped on the motorway after a “minor shunt” in June 2019. Mrs Mercer told the PA news agency the protest aimed to “force home the message that we’re just being ignored by the government”…

  • The ‘sirens are sounding’, UN’s Guterres tells COP26 conference

    In his opening address, Guterres said: “Our planet is talking to us and telling us something - and so are people everywhere. Climate action tops the list of people’s concerns, across countries, age and gender. “We must listen - and we must act - and we must choose wisely. On behalf of this and future generations, I urge you: choose ambition; choose solidarity; choose to safeguard our future and save humanity.” He focused on fossil fuels in particular, describing how the world’s “addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink”. Guterres added: “It’s time to say: enough. Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.…

  • 3D-printed coral skeletons kickstarts reef recovery

    Coral reefs are among the precious natural resources struggling with environmental degradation, with warming oceans, ocean acidification, disease, overfishing, and other threats destroying reefs. The Great Barrier Reef, for instance, has lost more than half its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas. Reef restoration efforts tend to employ concrete blocks or metal frames as substrates for new coral growth. This is a slow process that cannot keep up with the rate at which reefs are being destroyed; corals deposit their carbonate skeleton at rate of just millimetres per year. In an effort to speed up coral restoration, researchers from KAUST have been exploring the use of 3D printing to create specialised substrates. “Coral micro-fragments grow more quickly on our printed or moulded calcium…

  • UK’s net-zero tech sector doubled in value in past year

    In this context, a net-zero tech firm is a company focused on engineering solutions for offsetting CO2 emissions. The valuation of these companies rose from £17.8bn in 2020 to £34.8bn in 2021, according to Tech Nation’s Net Zero 2021 Report . The sector has been bolstered by the arrival of 10 new companies in the past year, but the hike in value was driven by funding rounds and stock market listings at established companies. For instance, Arrival, the UK-based EV manufacturer, saw its valuation rise to £11.3bn after being listed on the Nasdaq in March for £9.5bn in a record floatation for a UK tech company. Octopus Energy, meanwhile, saw its value rise to £3.6bn after a funding round in September while going public boosted energy storage firm ITM Power to a valuation of £2.1bn. The huge…

  • View from India: Tech inflections drive semiconductor industry

    5G devices, gaming consoles, hi-tech electronics, connected vehicles and electric mobility require semiconductor chips. Understandably, these chips cannot be manufactured overnight and more so as the process is capital intensive. Broadly, the process involves wafer manufacturing which is at the frontend and packaging, which represents the backend of the system. Yet, chip manufacturers can try to lower the bridge between the demand and supply gradually. Another way of looking at it is to wait for things to get back to pre-Covid days. The Government of India (GoI) has built Centres for Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CENs) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). This has paved the way for exploring research in semiconductors. State governments…

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  • Endangered faeces: zoo turns to ass poo for power

    Human and other animal faeces is generally considered waste, but – like forestry and agricultural waste , landfill gas, and sewage sludge – it can be repurposed as a fuel. As bacteria digest faeces, they produce a methane-rich biogas that can be burned for energy. Alternatively, faeces can be dehydrated and packed to produce combustible bricks (biochar or hydrochar) with a similar energy content to coal. ‘Poo power’ is an established technology in wastewater plants all around the world. At Marwell Zoo in Hampshire, waste from a range of the zoo’s endangered species – including Grevy’s zebra, the scimitar horned oryx, and the Somali wild ass – will be used as feedstock for biofuel. The fuel will be used to heat the zoo’s largest buildings, including its tropical house. The “Energy for Life…

  • Half a million UK homes to benefit from rural gigabit broadband roll-out

    As part of the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit initiative, properties in Cheshire, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, East Riding and North Yorkshire will be upgraded. The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised the installation of full-fibre, gigabit-capable broadband in every home and business across the UK by 2025. This pledge was later downgraded to just 85 per cent of premises in the UK, with MPs questioning whether even this target was achievable considering the current speed of the roll-out. The new roll-out has been positioned by DCMS as a way to accelerate the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in the hope that it will provide a boost to high-growth sectors like tech and the creative industries. It also could help people living…

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    E+T Magazine

  • X-ray technique finds zinc nanoparticles ‘eating’ Mary Rose

    The technique, computed tomography ctPDF (ctPDF), was developed by researchers at Columbia Engineering and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) with the intention of using it to study catalysts and batteries. One of the researchers, Professor Simon Billinge, was approached by nanoscientists from the University of Sheffield, and the idea arose to use ctPDF to examine what was happening inside the remains of the Mary Rose non-destructively. The Mary Rose sank during the Battle of the Solent in 1545. The shipwreck was excavated and raised in 1982 through an extremely complex procedure. It is displayed and carefully conserved, along with the thousands of artefacts found onboard, at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. Continuing to conserve the unique ship requires detailed knowledge…

  • Online perils should be taught like road safety to young children, says IWF

    Susie Hargreaves said urgent action was needed, after it emerged that the number of self-generated child sexual abuse images identified by the IWF involving boys and girls aged seven to 10 had nearly tripled in a year. It comes as MPs continue to hear evidence on the Online Safety Bill , with new rules proposed to force internet companies to better protect their users from harm on the internet. “I think people would be absolutely horrified if they knew their seven-year-old was upstairs in their bedroom being tricked and encouraged into sharing this content,” said Hargreaves, chief executive of the charity responsible for removing child indecency online. “I think that there are some basic safety messages that can be shared with children that are not about ‘how to open an account’.” She…

  • US Senate unanimously backs tighter Huawei restrictions

    The Secure Equipment Act would prohibit the FCC from considering or authorising use of products from companies deemed a threat and included on its 'covered list' (which it is required to maintain under the 2019 Secure and Trusted Communications Network Act). Companies on the list include Chinese telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE, which were formally designated national security threats by US authorities last year. In March, three further Chinese companies were added to the list: Hytera, Hangzhou Hikvision, and Zhejiang Dahua. The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Republican Mario Rubio, who is vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Democrat Ed Markey. Both issued statements welcoming the approval of the act by their peers. “China’s state-directed companies like Huawei and…

  • Crossrail faces £150m funding shortfall amid pandemic uncertainty

    By the time passengers can finally travel the full length of the Elizabeth Line, Crossrail is expected to have cost a total of around £19bn, including nearly £2.9bn in loans from the taxpayer to TfL and the Greater London Authority. Originally projected to cost £14.8bn and open in 2018, Crossrail’s budget has spiralled upwards. In May 2019, the National Audit Office estimated that the funding package for Crossrail stood at £17.6bn and it wouldn’t open by March 2021. Since that estimate, milestones were missed in 2019 and into 2020 due to Crossrail continually uncovering problems or identifying requirements for new work alongside the Covid-19 pandemic, which added further cost and delay to the programme. In a report, the PAC found that Crossrail Ltd is still unable to give passengers or…

  • Low-gravity simulator design could enable advanced astronaut training on Earth

    Developed by researchers at Florida State University, the new design for a magnetic levitation-based low-gravity simulator can create an area of low gravity with a volume about 1,000 times larger than existing simulators of the same type. “Low gravity has a profound effect on the behaviours of biological systems and also affects many physical processes from the dynamics and heat transfer of fluids to the growth and self-organisation of materials,” said Wei Guo, associate professor and lead scientist on the study. “However, spaceflight experiments are often limited by the high cost and the small payload size and mass. Therefore, developing ground-based low-gravity simulators is important.” Existing simulators, such as drop towers and parabolic aircraft, use free fall to generate near-zero…

  • Apple hit by chip and supply chain woes; warns that impact will get worse

    Speaking to Reuters, Cook said that the last quarter, ended September 25, had "larger than expected supply constraints" as well as pandemic-related manufacturing disruptions in South-East Asia. While Apple had seen "significant improvement" by late October in those South-East Asian facilities, the chip shortage has persisted and is now affecting "most of our products," Cook added. "We're doing everything we can do to get more [chips] and also everything we can do operationally to make sure we're moving just as fast as possible," he said. Cook said that chips made with older technology remain the key supply constraint. He said that Apple remains unsure whether the shortages will ease after the holiday shopping season. "Most of what we design are leading-edge (chip manufacturing) nodes…

  • Shell’s 2030 climate target falls short of Dutch court ruling; protests grow

    Shell said it would cut the greenhouse gas emissions produced at its oil and gas sites in half, as well as halve the off-site emissions from the energy it uses, by 2030. However, this new pledge - which would represent a 50 per cent reduction compared to 2016 emissions - will not touch around 90 per cent of Shell’s emissions, i.e.: those produced when customers burn its fuel. In May this year, a Dutch court ordered Shell to slash the so-called Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 45 per cent by 2030. Unsurprisingly, Shell is appealing the Scope 3 aspect of the ruling, namely the emissions that come from its customers. A Shell spokesperson said: “It is an important step as we rise to meet the challenge of the Dutch court’s ruling for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which Shell expects to meet by…

  • Juno spacecraft unlocks mysteries of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

    Jupiter's famed 16,000km-wide tempest has been churning in the planet’s atmosphere for several centuries and is big enough that it could swallow the Earth whole. Juno was launched in 2011 with the explicit mission of closely studying Jupiter and its moons. It finally reached the planet in 2016 after a gruelling five-year, 1.4 billion-mile trip. Its findings reveal new insights into Jovian (Jupiter) meteorology and its links to the planet’s deeper interior. While it has long been known that large storms and bands of rotating winds are common in Jupiter’s atmosphere, it’s unclear whether these storms are confined to the uppermost parts of the planet’s atmosphere or extend deeper into the planet. In a pair of studies, researchers used microwave and gravity measurements, respectively, from…

  • UK’s flagship climate bill not ready before COP26

    Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg confirmed that amendments made by the House of Lords to the legislation will be brought before MPs on 8 November. By this point, the COP26 conference will already have completed its first week. The passage of the Environment Bill has not been perfectly smooth, due to a wider public backlash; bilateral parliamentary criticism, and a government U-turn regarding regulations against dumping raw sewage into waterways. The House of Lords has backed by 213 to 60 (majority 153) an amendment to place a statutory duty on water companies to “take all reasonable steps” to prevent raw sewage leakage into the environment. The upper chamber has also taken on the government over steps to ensure the independence of the new environmental watchdog, the Office…

  • Close 3,000 coal units by 2030 to keep Paris Agreement goals

    The report was published just days ahead of world leaders gathering in Glasgow for COP26. More than other fossil fuels, coal may prove to be the most contentious issue as the most polluting of fossil fuels whilst still being a major driver of economic growth in much of the world. There is currently more than 2,000GW of unabated coal-fired power in operation, according to Global Energy Monitor. This must be almost halved by the end of the decade, requiring the closure of almost one coal unit every day from now until 2030. Operating coal units are currently on average 314MW in size, according to Global Energy Monitor data. There was a record number of coal station retirements in 2020. However, there must be a more than threefold increase in the amount of coal capacity closed in the past decade…

  • AI analyses gene variants for disease potential

    DNA mutation is a cardinal feature of biology. Small genetic variations – and the resulting proteins that build our cells – can lead to profound disruptions in physiological function, sometimes causing disease. A handful of well-known genetic mutations and their associated conditions are well understood. However, dramatic leaps ahead in genome sequencing technology has not been followed with similarly rapid advances in the ability to interpret the meaning of the millions of genetic variations identified through human genome sequencing. Harvard and Oxford researchers sought to make sense of these data by developing an AI tool called Eve (Evolutional model of Variant Effect). Eve uses machine learning to detect patterns of genetic variation across hundreds of thousands of non-human species…

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  • Most UK councils failed to install EV chargepoints in 2021 despite booming sales

    A combination of improving technology, cheaper prices, fuel shortages and the upcoming ban on petrol and diesel vehicles has seen electric vehicle sales reach record highs in the UK this year. But the FOI requests sent to 374 local councils in the UK from chargepoint firm DevicePilot shows they are not expanding infrastructure to meet the increased demand. Furthermore, investment has been uneven across the country, with some parts making sizable contributions towards EV infrastructure while others have spent nothing or received no government funding to do so. For example, the FOI requests showed that London councils spent more than double the national average on EV charging in 2021 (£204k) and they are planning to install 39 new chargers per 100,000 people in 2022, compared to a national…

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  • Intel unveils speedy gaming processors as it finally cracks 10nm chipmaking

    Processors typically become more power efficient and are able to compute more calculations per second the smaller the architecture that they use. Intel has been struggling to improve upon its 14nm chip technology and has been releasing successive chips based on that architecture while some of its competitors have leapfrogged it. Intel says its most powerful new chip, the Core i9-12900K, offers boosts of up to 30 per cent performance compared to the previous generation depending on the workload, with an average of about 20 per cent for gaming. It said that improved framerates could be achieved on games such as 'Troy: A Total War Saga' (25 per cent improvement), 'Hitman 3' (28 per cent) and 'Far Cry 6' (23 per cent). The full twelfth-generation Intel Core family will include 60 processors…

  • China’s hypersonic test ‘very concerning’, says US general

    General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the first Pentagon official to confirm on the record the nature of a test this year by the Chinese military that the Financial Times had reported was a hypersonic weapon. The article stated the nuclear-capable weapon was launched into space and orbited the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and gliding toward its target in China. Military experts say this is a Cold War concept known as a 'fractional orbital bombardment system' (FOBS). Milley said he could not discuss details because aspects involved classified intelligence. But he said the US is also working on hypersonic weapons. Its key features include flight trajectory, speed and manoeuvrability that make them capable of evading early warning systems that are part of…

  • Plants from plastics: circular recycling of polymer waste

    Plastics have taken the world by storm over the last century, finding applications in virtually every aspect of our lives. However, the rise of these synthetic polymers, which form the basis of plastics, has contributed to many serious environmental issues. The worst of these is the excessive use of petrochemical compounds and the disposal of non-biodegradable materials without recycling; only 14 per cent of all plastic waste is recycled, which hardly puts a dent in the problem. To solve the plastic conundrum, 'circular' systems need to be developed in which the source materials used to produce the plastics come full circle after disposal and recycling. At Tokyo Institute of Technology, a team of scientists led by assistant Professor Daisuke Aoki and Professor Hideyuki Otsuka is pioneering…

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