• Robotic arm to inspect leak in Russian spacecraft

    Russia's space corporation, Roscosmos, said the crew was using a camera on a Canadian-built robotic arm to capture images of the Soyuz MS-22 where a coolant leak was detected last Wednesday. After the images are transmitted to the ground on Monday, space officials will analyse them and decide on the next steps. "The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will be inspected with cameras of the SSRMS, the Space Station Remote Manipulator System," Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, said in a statement. "The results will be transmitted to Earth on Monday." Commonly known as Canadarm2, the SSRMS is a 17-metre-long arm which performs maintenance, moves supplies and grapples vehicles to the space station Soyuz capsule docked on the ISS / Nasa Image credit: Nasa The coolant...

  • UK and North Sea countries sign deal to build energy interconnectors

    The deal is intended to foster greater collaboration on development of offshore renewable energy and grid infrastructure that will be needed for the to meet UK net zero carbon goals. The initiative could help to support the UK targets to increase offshore wind more than fivefold to 50GW by 2030 - up from 8.4 GW today. The agreement was signed with the North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC) which is an EU body overseeing an offshore energy grid that links nine countries in the North Sea region. Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the European Commission are currently members of the NSEC, since the withdrawal of the UK from the EU in 2020. Energy minister Graham Stuart said: “I’m pleased to agree even greater energy cooperation with…

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  • Oil and gas firms to pay £265,000 in emission-related fines

    The crackdown is part of the regulator's commitment towards upholding  its flaring and venting guidance, which aims to eliminate unnecessary or wasteful flaring and venting of gas, with a view towards achieving zero routine flarings and venting by 2030. While venting is the discharging of gases into the atmosphere, flaring is burning the gases before they are discharged and mainly results in CO2 emissions.  Inspectors revealed UK-based EnQuest was fined £150,000 for flaring an excess 262 tonnes of gas on the Magnus Field, in the North Sea, between November 30 and December 1 last year, "despite knowing it did not have the necessary consent in place", the NSTA said. Norway-based Equinor was also fined £65,000 for flaring at least 348 tonnes of CO2 above the amount permitted on the Barnacle…

  • View from Brussels: Santa comes early for Europe’s industries

    The EU’s headline climate goals of more than halving emissions by 2030 and neutralising them by 2050 only work if the bloc’s carbon market is firing on all cylinders. By charging emitters for every tonne of carbon emitted, the market creates an incentive for polluters to invest in green technology. If buying pollution permits is a bigger expense for a steel producer than purchasing next-generation blast furnaces, the decision is an easy one. After many years of ineffective pricing, where the cost of pollution permits was a negligible cost that big companies simply put up with, the market has come into its own lately. The price has rocketed up towards €100, which cannot be ignored. That is why officials call it the flagship policy of the Green Deal and have called for more firepower in…

  • Scientists freeze coral to restore Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

    In a world first, the team at the Great Barrier Reef has been able to cryogenically freeze and store coral, with  a new lightweight "cryomesh" that is cheaper and more efficient than current methods, Reuters has reported. In a December lab trial, scientists used the cryomesh to freeze coral larvae at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The coral had been collected from the reef for the trial, which coincided with the brief annual spawning window. "If we can secure the biodiversity of coral … then we'll have tools for the future to really help restore the reefs, and this technology for coral reefs in the future is a real game-changer," Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist at Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, told Reuters. …

  • Hydrogen will have ‘niche role’ in decarbonisation, say MPs

    Hydrogen will not play a major role in the UK’s efforts to reach net zero although it can grow to become “a big niche” fuel in particular sectors, MPs on the Commons Science and Technology Committee have said. In a new report, the Committee argues that hydrogen will probably have a “specific but limited” role in decarbonising sectors, for example where electrification is not possible, and as a means of storing energy. MPs urge the government to give the industry more clarity over how and when it will make decisions about the role of hydrogen in the UK economy. While hydrogen is a potentially zero-carbon fuel source, it can be more carbon intensive than gas and coal if derived from fossil fuels rather than through electrolysis powered by a renewable energy source. Currently, 95 per cent…

  • UK manufacturers report steep fall in output

    This fall was largely attributed to sectors including mechanical engineering, food and drink, tobacco, paper and printing & media, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said. The survey, which was based on the responses of 220 manufacturing firms, also found that selling price inflation is expected to accelerate slightly in the next three months although below the record high reached earlier this year. The volume of goods and services produced by factories fell by 9 per cent in the three months to December – a steep drop from the 18 per cent rise in output reported in the previous three months to November, and means it contracted at the fastest pace since September 2020. Anna Leach, CBI deputy chief economist, said: “The corrosive effect of higher inflation on demand is increasingly…

  • UK army approves £129m contract for mini drones that fit in a soldier’s backpack

    The drones will be designed to replace existing Mini Uncrewed Aerial Systems (MUAS) which are expected to be retired by the end of 2024. Lockheed will supply 159 rotary-wing Indago 4 devices which weigh just 2.27kg and can be folded and carried in a soldier’s backpack and deployed in two minutes with a range of approximately eight miles. Its high-resolution camera system provides zoom capabilities for deployed forces to accurately identify people, objects, vehicles and weapons, be it day or night. A further 105 fixed-wing Stalker VXE30 drones will also be produced that weigh a little over 20kg and feature a 4.88-metre wingspan. The Stalker is more capable than the Indago 4 and can be vertically-launched and flown for more than eight hours, covering around 60 miles. Alex Chalk KC, minister…

  • Hands-on review: 1More SonoFlow Hi-Res Audio wireless ANC headphones

    We've reviewed a number of 1More's 'headphone' products, although to date these have all been earbuds, each with their own USP, ranging from spatial audio , to being tiny , being tiny and red , and being tiny and Hi-Res Audio capable . Now, we've lent both our ears to the company's latest full-size over-ear headphones, named SonoFlow. We recently reviewed a very similar-looking pair of Bluetooth true wireless active-noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones, the OneOdio Focus A10 . Much of what we said about them, including the core tech spec, also applies here to 1More's SonoFlow. Bluetooth 5.0; 32Ω impedance 40mm drivers; multimode ANC; multi-device connectivity; lightweight, mostly plastic, build; soft and comfortable, skin-friendly protein leather earpads and headband; easy flat folding for…

  • Warwick University to host powerful nuclear magnetic resonance instrument

    There are only seven such NMR machines currently operating around the world, with the latest one to be hosted at Warwick University.  The funds have been awarded to a consortium of six UK Universities through the UKRI Infrastructure Fund: Lancaster, Liverpool, Nottingham, Southampton and St Andrews. The 1.2GHz NMR spectrometer will be located in a new building at the University of Warwick, creating two new jobs for scientists in the process. The powerful instrument builds on the current capability of 1.0GHz at the Warwick-hosted UK High-Field Solid-State NMR National Research Facility (pictured below). The new 1 GHz solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer in position at the National Research Facility for High-Field Solid-State NMR based at the University…

  • Where now for the transistor?

    The transistor celebrated its 75th birthday on Friday (16 December), just at the point where its future is in doubt, or at least its role in the future scaling of the chips that use this now ubiquitous device. Depending on who you ask, Moore’s Law is in various states of disrepair. Part of that problem is that the law itself is a bit underspecified so people naturally impress their own beliefs on it. While it was convenient, Intel pretended that it meant compute performance. Why? The company was pushing up clock speeds in a trend allowed by another of electronics’ informal laws, devised by IBM researcher Bob Dennard in the 1970s. A few years later that law slammed into the wall and Intel went back to talking about transistor density. Even that is a bit an illusion. Though Gordon Moore put…

  • UK at risk of ‘missing out’ on green manufacturing funding, warns think tank

    The report warned that the country was already “rapidly falling behind the EU” on green manufacturing investment and called for the government to provide cash incentives for green manufacturing businesses to set up in the UK. With manufacturing jobs concentrated in “left behind” areas, the report added that failing to secure green investment would further “devastate” industrial communities and cause political problems for the government in vital “red wall” seats. “If the government fails to secure these green factories, then they will go to the UK’s competitors in Europe, the United States and Asia,” the report said.  In some sectors, the UK could have even less than five years to secure investment, according to the researchers behind the report.  Given current building project timelines…

  • Global coal demand surges to levels not seen since 2013

    According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), demand increased only marginally this year despite the tight restrictions on oil supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The world’s coal consumption is expected to remain at similar levels up to 2025 in the absence of stronger efforts to accelerate the transition to clean energy. While wealthy countries are continuing to shut down their coal plants at record rates in a bid to cut carbon emissions, China’s ongoing use of the fossil fuel and its expansion of some facilities is expected to keep demand flat rather than seeing any reduction. An overall rise in usage of 1.2 per cent is expected this year, surpassing 8 billion tonnes in a single year for the first time and eclipsing the previous record set in 2013. Expected coal…

  • UK pledges £34m for ecological protection overseas

    Nearly £30m will go to support developing countries in delivering the ‘30x30’ target, which is aiming to protect least 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean habitats by 2030. The target has the support of over 100 countries globally, with UK negotiators driving to get it included in a new UN Global Biodiversity Framework being negotiated in Montreal this week. In 2020, the government pledged to stick to the 30x30 target for land and sea in the UK, but a recent report found that only minimal progress has been made on plans to meet this commitment so far. As well as the funding for developing countries, an additional £5.79m of new funding will be spent on conservation projects in UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs). These include using satellite technology to monitor seabird populations…

  • Virgin Atlantic chosen to operate ‘world’s first’ net-zero transatlantic flight

    Virgin Atlantic has won a competition to receive government funding for the first-ever net-zero transatlantic flight , the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced. The flight will be powered by SAF, which is largely made from forestry or agricultural waste, such as cooking oil. The use of these fuels will allow Virgin Atlantic to reduce the flight's carbon emissions by about 70 per cent, with the remaining 30 per cent being offset by an investment in carbon removal technology.  Currently, safety  regulators only allow a maximum of 50 per cent SAF blended with kerosene to be used in commercial jet engines.  However, the UK’s transport minister Baroness Vere said the flight would demonstrate that it was safe to fully power a passenger aircraft with the new fuels. “For decades, flying…

  • Christmas STEM Challenge: Detecting Elves and Santa Claus

    If you are a light sleeper, and the reindeer make a clatter on the roof or Santa calls out to Rudolf or Donner and Blitzen, then you’ll be all right. When you hear Santa Claus and co, just open the window and look out. But suppose it’s quiet, or you are dozing – you’ll miss the chance to see the magic of Christmas. That’s why you need your very own Santa Claus & Elf Detector. Now here is a curious thing. A high-sensitivity multimeter, with its leads connected to nothing, set to AC, will in general display a reading, often 100mV or more. Just the probe wires lying around will pick up a signal. And that signal isn’t constant – move a bit closer to the meter to read it and the reading will change, like as not. What is going on here? Quite often, it is the magnetic field around wires carrying…

  • Book review: 'Switched On' by Albert Glinsky

    When you think of synthesisers, be it vintage or modern, the chances are high that you picture a Moog, or something very much like one. From their earliest incarnation in the mid-1960s, Bob (born Robert Arthur) Moog's designs, both visually and sonically, soon became synonymous with the word 'synthesiser' in general, helping to kickstart an entirely new approach to music, and also potentially creating a highly lucrative industry sector. The key word in the previous paragraph, at least as far as Bob Moog and fame and fortune is concerned, is "potentially". Becoming a legend is one thing. Turning that legend into tangible financial reward is quite another. To say that the Moog story had its ups and downs over the years would be a spectacularly dry understatement. As is often the case, the…

  • Nasa satellite used to monitor methane from landfill sites

    The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and other Nasa science instruments will be part of the global survey to detect the potent greenhouse gas. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere, although it eventually dissipates at a much faster rate. It is estimated to be responsible for roughly a quarter to a third of global warming caused by humans. But due to its relatively short atmospheric lifespan, eliminating emissions could lower warming in a much shorter time frame than carbon dioxide reduction efforts. The aim of the new initiative is to establish a baseline assessment of global waste sites that emit methane at high rates. This information can help to support efforts to reduce the…

  • Liquid tin could cool down fusion reactors

    The discovery has led the research team to develop a liquid metal tin divertor, which is an advanced heat-removal component of fusion reactors. The process is possible due to the chemical compatibility between high-temperature liquid metal tin (Sn) and reduced activation ferritic martensitic, a candidate structural material for fusion reactors.  Fusion is a potential source of almost limitless clean energy but is currently only carried out in experiments as it has proved difficult to harness. However, there are hopes that  it could become a   safe and clean alternative   source of energy in the not-too-distant future. Divertors are fundamental components of fusion reactors, as they are used to gasify impurities in the plasma and send the gas to an exhaust pump. Usually, divertors are…

  • London Underground study discovers previously unknown air pollutants

    They believe that the particles – a type of iron oxide called maghemite – have been largely ignored in the past due to their diminutive size. But a new type of pollution analysis using magnetism has discovered the particles in Underground ticket halls, platforms and operator cabins. Since it takes time for iron to oxidise into maghemite, the results suggest that pollution particles are suspended for long periods, due to poor ventilation throughout the Underground, particularly on station platforms. Some of the particles are as small as five nanometres in diameter: small enough to be inhaled and end up in the bloodstream, but too small to be captured by typical methods of pollution monitoring. However, it is not clear whether these particles pose a health risk. The researchers believe…

  • New airport screening technology to eliminate 100ml liquid rule from 2024

    Passengers will be able to leave liquids and large electrical items in cabin luggage as they go through security in a bid to reduce hassle for passengers and speed up security queues. As changes will be gradual over the next two years, the current rules will continue to apply for the time being, but some airports may introduce the new systems sooner. Heathrow Airport, which has been trialling the new technology since 2019, said that at least 60 per cent of bags rejected at security checkpoints are subjected to hand searches because passengers haven’t removed all liquids from bags. This led to passengers spending an estimated extra 2.1 minutes in security in July this year alone. Transport secretary Mark Harper said: “The tiny toiletry has become a staple of airport security checkpoints…

  • US lawmakers propose TikTok ban

    The bipartisan bill is the latest move in the US against the company and is framed within the context of a trade war between Washington and Beijing.  The  proposed legislation  would “block and prohibit all transactions” in the US by social media companies with at least one million monthly users that are based in, or under the “substantial influence” of, countries that are considered foreign adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. The bill specifically names TikTok and its parent ByteDance as social media companies for the purposes of the legislation.   The bill was proposed by Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher and Democrat Congresswoman Raja Krishnamoorthi. Last month…

  • Apple to permit rival app stores on European devices

    The iPhone maker is reported to have begun making preparations to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act, which comes into force in 2024.  In meeting the requirements set by European legislators, Apple could allow its customers to download third-party software to their iPhones and iPads without using the company’s App Store, sidestepping Apple’s restrictions and commission charges of up to 30 per cent. The EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) aims to curb anti-competitive behaviour and keep “gatekeepers” from   suppressing market competition.  The fines for non-compliance can reach up to 10 per cent of annual turnover.  To address what it deems as   unfair business practices , t he DMA is set to require 'Big Tech' companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft to make their…

  • Full-fibre broadband rollout ramps up but UK household adoption remains low

    In its annual Connected Nations report, it found that full-fibre connections are now available to 12.4 million households (42 per cent) – an increase of 4.3 million from last year. In its last manifesto, the Conservative Party promised to install 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, although last year, MPs questioned whether even this target was plausible considering the speed of the rollout. The average UK home broadband download speed is currently 59.4Mbit/s but the gap between UK households seeing the fastest and slowest speeds is widening as many customers upgrade to faster services. Full-fibre connections – along with upgraded cable networks – have the…

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