• UK and EU strike trade data-sharing deal

    After meeting in London, UK foreign secretary James Cleverly and European Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič announced an agreement had been reached on the "way forward regarding the specific question of the EU's access to UK IT systems." The meeting was described as “cordial and constructive” in a joint statement, and it was widely perceived as a significant step towards the improvement of UK-EU relations and the unlocking of the Northern Ireland protocol.  The new deal will allow EU officials to access a live information system detailing goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, which remains subject to the bloc's sanitary and regulatory standards under the current Brexit agreement. However, the EU's commitment to protecting the single market has required tougher controls…

  • ‘Artificial pancreas’ tech recommended for 100,000 diabetes patients

    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which advises the NHS on new technologies, has recommended the use of hybrid closed-loop systems for managing blood glucose levels. Real-world NHS trials allowed people suffering with the condition to go about their day-to-day life without having to monitor if their blood glucose levels are too high or too low. If type 1 diabetes is not well controlled, people are at risk of long-term complications of hyperglycaemia, including blindness, amputations or kidney problems. The hybrid closed-loop system comprises of a continuous glucose monitor sensor attached to the body which transmits data to a body-worn insulin pump. This uses the data to run a mathematical calculation to work out how much insulin needs to be delivered to keep…

  • Scientists publish open AI able to map planets

    The team is formed by researchers from Constructor University in Bremen, Germany, the University of Padua, and the University of Bologna. Their goal was to improve the way in which the mapping of planetary landforms is currently carried out. At the moment, creating geological maps of planetary surfaces such as Mars is a time-consuming, multi-step process. However, the team believed that leveraging deep-learning techniques, which use artificial neural networks to analyse data sets, can significantly improve the production process, and allow the creation of an open-source, ready-to-use and highly customisable toolset  for planetary mapping.  "We were interested in designing a simple, out-of-the-box tool that can be customised and used by many," said Giacomo Nodjoumi, one of the scientists…

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  • 1,200 jobs at risk as Amazon proposes closure of three UK warehouses

    The company has launched consultations over the closure of sites in Hemel Hempstead, Doncaster, and Gourock in the west of Scotland. All workers at the sites will be offered roles at other Amazon locations. The online retail giant has also revealed plans for two new major fulfilment centres in Peddimore, West Midlands, and Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, which will create 2,500 jobs over the next three years. Around 500 employees currently work at Amazon’s Hemel Hempstead site and will all be offered roles at its Dunstable warehouse or other nearby locations. The consultations will involve around 400 staff at its Doncaster site in Balby Carr Bank, who the company plans to transfer to its two other fulfilment centres at Doncaster’s iPort. The proposals will also affect around 300 workers…

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  • ‘Anomaly’ scuppers first rocket launch attempt from UK soil

    The launch took place from Spaceport Cornwall aboard a customised 747 that served as the LauncherOne system’s carrier aircraft. The plane, dubbed Cosmic Girl, took off on Monday night from Cornwall Airport with hundreds of members of the public watching and over 75,000 viewing a live stream of the event. To prepare Cosmic Girl for the launch, the interior of the main deck was gutted of all seats and overhead bins to reduce the weight. The rocket was successfully released from the aircraft and its engines ignited, taking it into space at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour (around 18,000km/h). But at some point after stage separation and ignition of the second stage, the system experienced “an anomaly”, ending the mission prematurely. It is currently unknown if the rocket is still…

  • Solar-powered system converts plastic waste into fuel

    The University of Cambridge team said the system can convert two waste streams into two chemical products simultaneously. The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry. The system can also be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor. “Converting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research,” said professor Erwin Reisner, the paper’s senior author. “Plastic pollution is a huge problem worldwide, and often, many of the plastics we throw into…

  • EU regulation lacks consideration of pharmaceutical industry emissions

    The study has described the current regulation of pharmaceutical companies as being unable to prevent the release of chemicals into the environment throughout the manufacturing supply chain. The University of Eastern Finland researchers analysed how good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and environmental risk assessment (ERA) address critical stages of the manufacturing supply chain with regard to environmental emissions. The findings, published in the journal Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, identified several challenges including the limited scope and weight of regulation, and a lack of competence among inspectors “For example, ERA focuses exclusively on the risks associated with the use of the product and does not address the emissions associated with…

  • How hydrogen aircraft can redefine global connectivity

    The introduction of zero-emission aircraft will enable us to rethink our approach to regional connectivity and the way we currently fly, according to a recent report from the New Aviation Propulsion Knowledge and Innovation Network (NAPKIN), a consortium of nine UK organisations set up to establish a blueprint for zero-carbon aviation by modelling the introduction of low or zero-emissions aircraft into regional and short-haul aviation. The report's authors concluded that zero-carbon-emission flight on sub-regional routes, using aircraft that range in size from 7 to 19 seats, will be feasible from the middle of this decade. The report also projects that it could be cost-effective to replace the entire UK regional fleet with safe, certified, zero-carbon emission larger aircraft comprising 50…

  • UK's first space rocket launch mission ready to take off

    The UK's first rocket launch from British soil is expected to take place on Monday, a few hours before midnight GMT, with additional back-up dates continuing into mid and late January. If it succeeds, it will be a major milestone for UK space, marking the birth of a home-grown launch industry. The launch will see   Virgin Orbit’s jumbo, known as   Cosmic Girl , carrying   LauncherOne, to an altitude of approximately 35,000ft (10km) and then dropping it. Once released into the atmosphere, the LauncherOne rocket will accelerate to 8,000mph (12,875km/h) before deploying seven satellites into orbit   with a variety of civil and defence applications. "What we've seen over the last eight years is this building of excitement towards something very aspirational and different for Cornwall, something…

  • Capacity market reforms to cut chance of blackouts, incentivise low carbon energy

    Great Britain's Capacity Market is a scheme that uses competitive auctions to make sure there is enough electricity available to meet peak electricity demands in order to prevent blackouts. It does not include Northern Ireland. The new plans published for consultation today will ensure the scheme keeps pace with the transition to cleaner energy sources and technologies on the GB grid which are often cheaper than fossil fuels, albeit more intermittent. The UK has committed to decarbonising its electricity system by 2035. Last week, new figures showed that a number of low-carbon records were broken in 2022 and the greenest year for energy generation overall. Coal in particular, which is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel, has dropped from 43 per cent of the electricity produced in 2012…

  • Vertical farming gets boost with Siemens’ 80 Acres collaboration

    With five production farms in southwestern Ohio, a new farm in Florence, Kentucky, a future farm in Covington, Georgia, and R&D facilities in Arkansas and the Netherlands, 80 Acres Farms specialises in growing the next generation of food; food grown in eco-friendly indoor farms closer to consumers’ tables. Anchored by Siemens Financial Services’ initial investment, the two entities have partnered to apply innovative technology within the agriculture industry, fostering sustainable, healthy, traceable, and more productive farming practices.   Utilising Siemens’ robust set of software and hardware solutions, spanning intelligent facility and energy management systems to advanced industrial automation technology, 80 Acres Farms is now positioned to meet its goal to optimise and standardise…

  • Rolls-Royce Motor Cars reports highest sales in 118-year history

    The firm - which manufactures its vehicles in Goodwood, UK - said it saw sales increase in almost all regions, with particularly strong year-on-year growth in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, the US and European markets. It said the Americas saw significant growth and remains the largest single region for Rolls‑Royce that but there was also expanded interest in “bespoke commissions”. A “single-digit” drop in sales was recorded in Greater China – which includes mainland China and areas such as Hong Kong – due to “ongoing headwinds”, but this was “successfully counterbalanced by increased sales in other markets”, according to the car maker. The firm created more than 150 new jobs at its Goodwood plant in 2022 and it now employs a total of 2,500 people. The firm unveiled the Rolls-Royce…

  • Ukraine will need $1.79bn to restore its telecom sector after the war, UN says

    Ukraine will need to invest a minimum of $1.79bn (£148bn) to restore its telecommunications sector to pre-war levels, the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has determined. The agency was commissioned in April to conduct a damage assessment of the destruction of Ukraine's communication networks as a result of Russia's ongoing invasion of the country.  The long-anticipated report has found that there was considerable damage and destruction to communications infrastructure in more than 10 out of 24 regions of Ukraine over the first six months of the conflict.  It also alleged that Russia had "destroyed completely or seized" networks in parts of the country .  "Since the beginning of military attacks, with the purpose of using the facilities in its interests and for…

  • View from India: Youth diaspora, prized possession of the world

    The date was chosen to mark the return to India of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, on 9 January 1915. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Mahatma Gandhi went to South Africa for a professional stint but stayed there for 21 years, before returning to his home turf. The 2023 event is being held from January 8-10 in Indore. It is the 17th edition of PBD, known in English as Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Day, and is being organised in partnership with the Madhya Pradesh Government. This year’s theme is Diaspora: Reliable Partners for India's Progress in Amrit Kaal. With 18 million Indian-born people living abroad, India has the world’s largest diaspora. PBD provides an important platform to engage and connect with the overseas Indians and enable the diaspora to interact with each other. Over…

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  • Researchers crack of mystery of why Roman concrete lasts so long

    Many Roman structures made from concrete, which includes roads, aqueducts, ports, and massive buildings, still remain some two millennia after they were first built. Rome’s famous Pantheon, which has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and was dedicated in AD 128, is still intact, and some ancient Roman aqueducts still deliver water to Rome today. Despite this, modern concrete structures can start to crumble just a few decades after construction. Researchers have spent decades trying to figure out the secret of this ultradurable ancient construction material, particularly in structures that endured especially harsh conditions, such as docks, sewers, and seawalls, or those constructed in seismically active locations. Researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and laboratories…

  • Mercedes-Benz announces proprietary EV charging network

    Announced at CES 2023, in Las Vegas, the German luxury automaker revealed it will start building its own electric vehicle charging network this year. The project will allow Mercedes to compete with Tesla, at an initial projected cost of around $1.05bn (£880bn).  Mercedes said it expects to have a network with 400 charging stations and more than 2,500 high-power plugs across the US and Canada completed within six or seven years.  Eventually, the full network is expected to consist of 10,000 chargers and will be available to EV owners in North America, Europe and China, the world’s three largest markets for battery-electric vehicles.  “To accelerate the electric transformation, we need to ensure that the charging experience keeps pace as well,” said Mercedes chairman Ola Källenius. “We…

  • India pledges £1.78bn for green hydrogen projects

    The large investment in green hydrogen aims to help one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. The aim of the funding initiative is “to make green hydrogen affordable and bring down its cost over the next five years. It will also help India reduce its emissions and become a major exporter in the field,” said Anurag Thakur, India’s minister for information and broadcasting. The funding will also serve to help establish the capacity to make at least five million metric tons of green hydrogen by 2030, which would add about 125 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, the government has revealed.  As of October 2022, India had about 166 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity. While hydrogen is a potentially zero-carbon fuel source, it can…

  • 40 per cent of Earth’s glaciers could be lost due to fossil fuel use

    Even if global emissions targets are met, much of the planet's glacial mass would still vanish, according to an international study led by Pittsburgh's College of Engineering.  Assistant professor David Rounce led an international effort to produce new projections of glacier mass loss through the century under different emissions scenarios. The work showed that the world could lose as much as 41 per cent of its total glacier mass this century or as little as 26 per cent, depending on the success - or otherwise - of today’s climate change mitigation efforts. The worst-case scenario would mean more than two-thirds of the total number of glaciers would vanish by the end of the century, contributing to ever-increasing sea levels around the world. This scenario would be triggered by continued…

  • Zero-carbon energy broke raft of British records in 2022

    According to National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), wind power generated over 20GW of electricity for the first time in 2022 and February was the lowest carbon intensity month since records began. The greenest day on record, with a carbon intensity of just 52gCO2/kWh, occurred last week on 28 December. Nevertheless, gas continued to play an important role in providing most of the electricity used across Great Britain in 2022, which caused continued pain for consumers due to high wholesale prices in the wake of the Ukraine war. The share of electricity from wind turbines continued to grow – it provided over 70 per cent of the country’s demand on 30 December, when it reached nearly 21GW of generation. Over 50 per cent of electricity was generated by zero-carbon sources in the…

  • Future 6G tech could be used to power wearables via the human body

    While 6G wireless networks are still some way off, Visible Light Communication (VLC) is seen as a possible alternative to using the radio spectrum. VLC is like a wireless version of fibre optics, using flashes of light to transmit information. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have invented a low-cost, innovative way to harvest the waste energy from VLC by using the human body as an antenna. This waste energy can be recycled to power an array of wearable devices, or potentially even larger electronics. “VLC is quite simple and interesting,” said Jie Xiong, a professor at UMass Amherst and the paper’s senior author. “Instead of using radio signals to send information wirelessly, it uses the light from LEDs that can turn on and off, up to one million times per second…

  • Money & Markets: AI is the investors’ Next Big Thing

    Back when I was a child the first published piece I wrote was an AI short story in the July 1982 issue of Practical Computing. AI is rapidly becoming the next big thing in financial markets, and it's not hard to see why. With the ability to analyse vast amounts of data and make decisions faster than any human could, AI is transforming the way that financial institutions operate. No wait… I didn’t write the above paragraph; OpenAI’s ChatGPT did, and if you type ‘Write an 800 word article about AI being the next big thing in financial markets’ you will get an article the length I’m writing that will take you through the whole enchilada, without the use of the cliché, ‘the whole enchilada.’ ChatGPT is blowing people away and frightening and delighting humanity at all levels. Google is apparently…

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  • UK to pay farmers to protect their local environment

    The changes mean farmers could receive up to a further £1,000 per year for taking nature-friendly action through the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). This new Management Payment will be made for the first 50 hectares of farm (£20/ha), to cover the administrative costs of participation. SFI is already paying farmers to improve soil and moorlands, and an expanded set of standards for 2023 will be published shortly. The announcement follows a joint letter to Rishi Sunak in November urging him not to backtrack on reforms to agriculture policy that are designed to help farmers improve the environment and nature. Farmers with a Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreement will also see an average increase of 10 per cent to their revenue payment rates – covering ongoing activity such as habitat…

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  • Scientists use human touch to power electronics

    Using the human body as an antenna, the team of researchers has developed a low-cost, innovative way to harvest waste energy from V isible Light Communication (VLC), a wireless version of fibre optics that uses flashes of light to transmit information.  This waste energy collected can then be recycled to power an array of wearable devices, or even, perhaps, larger electronics. “VLC is quite simple and interesting,” said Jie Xiong , professor of information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst.  “Instead of using radio signals to send information wirelessly, it uses the light from LEDs that can turn on and off, up to one million times per second.” Part of the appeal of VLC is that the infrastructure is already everywhere. Homes, vehicles, streetlights and offices are all lit by LED bulbs…

  • MPs recommend ‘national mobilisation’ to reach net zero

    In a recent report, a cross-party committee of MPs has asked for a “national mobilisation” that would improve home insulation and accelerate the transition towards net-zero. The document has also called on ministers to set ambitious targets for rolling-out onshore wind and tidal energy, as well as recommending the government should set an end date for domestic oil and gas licensing. “To reduce the UK’s demand on fossil fuels, we must stop consuming more than we need," said Philip Dunne MP, the committee chairman.  “We must fix our leaky housing stock, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and wastes our constituents’ hard-earned cash: we must make homes warmer and retain heat for longer." At the moment, the UK remains dependent on fossil fuels for 78 per cent of its…

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