• Major brands expected to miss plastic sustainability targets

    The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s (EMF) ‘Global Commitment 2022 Progress Report’ has revealed that the target of achieving 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025 will “almost certainly” not be met, and also found that virgin plastic use had actually increased back to 2018 levels. The Global Commitment and Plastic Pact network represents more than 1,000 businesses, governments and other organisations that have pledged to create a circular economy for plastic in which it never becomes waste. For the third year in a row, the share of reusable, recyclable or compostable plastic packaging has increased slightly among members to 65.4 per cent. However, this percentage varies widely across signatories – from below 20 per cent to close to 100 per cent – mainly driven…

  • Hydrogen’s potential as transport fuel needs investment, says report

    The shift to sustainable fuels could be vital in reaching the UK government’s 'Net Zero 2050' targets. Hydrogen is an emerging player in the road transport energy mix and part of a portfolio of green energy solutions that are at different points on their evolutionary timelines for replacing fossil fuels.   However, for hydrogen to be used in the future, policymakers and industry need to consider its role now, as well as the infrastructure needed, and make the necessary investment for this to happen. Joanne Cowell, lead author of the report, a member of the IET’s Transport Panel and a technical director at Costain, said: “There is significant focus on electricity as a viable alternative energy source for road transport and in many cases battery electric vehicles are likely to be the most…

  • Cumbria coal mine planning decision deferred yet again

    Environmental group Friends of the Earth said it had received a letter from the government confirming that the decision was now due to be made “on or before 8 December 2022”. A decision had been expected “on or before 8 November”, around the same time as next week’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt. In January 2021, the government said it would not intervene over a decision made by Cumbria County Council to approve the construction of a £165m deep coal mine – the UK’s first in 30 years. The controversial decision led to a strong backlash from environmental campaigners, who said it did not fit the UK’s plans to become a net zero economy by 2050. The business secretary at the time, Kwasi Kwarteng, admitted there was “slight tension” between the approval of the new mine and the UK’s climate…

  • Britain bids farewell to fax

    The lifecycle of fax machines has come to an end, or so Ofcom seems to believe.  The UK regulator has proposed updating the USO – a set of rules that ensures everyone in the UK has access to telecommunication services – to remove the requirement for telecommunications companies to provide facsimile machine connections. At the moment, BT and KCOM are the two designated telecom providers responsible for universal service in the UK, meaning they are legally obliged to ensure the existence of an affordable national telephone and fax service across the UK.  The move comes amid the diminishing use of fax machines, which were first commercialised by Xerox in 1964 and reached a peak in popularity in the late 1980s. The technology works by processing the contents of a fixed graphic image and transmitting…

  • UK reveals it has been boosting Ukrainian cyber defences since Russian invasion

    Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has revealed that the UK’s Ukraine Cyber Programme was launched shortly after Putin’s invasion in February to protect against increased Russian cyber-attacks. However, the programme had been kept quiet until now in order to protect its operational security. The programme has been used to provide incident response support to infrastructure run by the Ukraine government and prevent malicious actors from accessing vital information relevant to the war effort. Ukraine has had a long history of facing cyber-attacks on its critical infrastructure from Russia – despite the country repeatedly denying its involvement. Especially since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has been forced to reckon with repeated attacks on its telecommunication systems…

  • Elon Musk becomes Twitter CEO

    Elon Musk has become “sole director” of Twitter after finalising his $44bn (£38bn) takeover of the company , according to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday. "The following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou," Musk said in the filing. He later tweeted: “the bird is freed”. the bird is freed — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022 Shortly afterwards, Musk tweeted that the move to dissolve the board "is just temporary," without elaborating. A  separate SEC filing showed that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had become…

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  • The UK must invest in green tech to 'future-proof’ its economy, Badenoch says

    The UK must “future-proof” its economy by investing in cutting-edge green technologies, International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said. In a speech to the Green Trade and Investment Expo in Gateshead, Badenoch highlighted the UK’s success over the past two years in securing almost £20bn in green inward investment, creating over 11,000 new jobs. During the event, Badenoch showcased figures that reportedly show the positive economic impact of investments in clean and sustainable energy. According to government figures, total foreign investment has created nearly 85,000 new jobs for people across the UK in 2021-2022 alone, and the government is expecting £100bn in private sector investment to support nearly 500,000 new jobs by 2030. “We know trade and investment grows our economy,…

  • BP reports massive profits rise sparking calls to ramp up windfall taxes

    The oil and gas giant made £7.1bn between July and September which amounts to more than double its profit for the same period last year. This was even more than the figure predicted by market analysts, who forecast that the firm would make £5.3bn over the quarter. “Another week, another £7.1bn banked by BP in profits, with billions to be paid out to investors,” Greenpeace UK campaigner Philip Evans said. “Meanwhile the homes of the poorest households in the UK urgently need insulation, the growing numbers in fuel poverty need financial support, and further investment in cheap renewables could lower our bills permanently. “As Chancellor, [Rishi] Sunak imposed a windfall tax on these companies but gave them a loophole so big it turned into a huge tax break for more oil and gas. That won…

  • Microneedle patch to cure baldness developed with machine learning

    The team from the National Natural Science Foundation of China used the best candidate from their results to construct a proof-of-concept microneedle patch and effectively regenerated hair on mice. Most people with substantial hair loss have the condition androgenic alopecia, also called male- or female-pattern baldness. In this condition, hair follicles can be damaged by androgens, inflammation or an overabundance of reactive oxygen species, such as oxygen free radicals. When the levels of oxygen free radicals are too high, they can overwhelm the body’s antioxidant enzymes that typically keep them in check. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is one of these enzymes, and researchers have recently created SOD mimics called 'nanozymes'. But so far, those that have been reported aren’t very good…

  • Emission reduction plans are too reliant on limited land space, report finds

    A global group of researchers found that countries intend to use 633 million hectares of total land area for carbon capture tactics such as tree planting, which would gobble up land desperately needed for food production and nature protection. Only 551 million hectares accounted for in pledges would restore degraded lands and primary forests, which store carbon, regulate rainfall and local temperatures, shelter plants and animals as well as purify water and air. In some cases the land belongs to indigenous people, whose land rights are found to be critical to reducing climate change due to their stewardship of forests. “Land has a critical role to play in global efforts to keep the planet cool, but it’s not a silver bullet solution,” said Kate Dooley, the lead author of ‘The Land Gap…

  • NSPCC criticises delays to ‘crucial’ Online Safety Bill

    The NSPCC has urged the government to end delays around the Online Safety Bill, drawing attention to the thousands of offences that are taking place while the legislation remains in limbo.  The Online Safety Bill has been presented by the government as a ground-breaking law that will protect the privacy and safety of children in the digital sphere. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries said it will make the UK “the safest place in the world for our children to go online”. The legislation was due to be discussed in Parliament today (1 November), but has been pushed back once again following the latest leadership crisis in the Conservative Party that saw Rishi Sunak become the new Prime Minister of the UK. The political turmoil also led the junior minister responsible for delivering the…

  • Book review: ‘Chip War’ by Chris Miller

    It may be one of the most important stress tests of influence on the world’s geopolitical stage but, when it comes to the battle for supremacy in the world of semiconductors, few of us put them on a footing with traditional commodities. We take it as read that oil influences global economic prosperity and international stability, and yet we seem unconcerned that China spends more on importing chips from Taiwan than it does on oil. As Chris Miller points out in his compelling ‘Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology' (Simon & Schuster, £20, ISBN 9781398504097), with everything – from consumer gadgets to automobiles, stock exchanges to power grids – relying on the ubiquitous integrated circuit, when markets become politicised the modern world finds its foundations, to use…

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    E+T Magazine

  • How can we fix the missing link holding back blockchain?

    The global digital supply chain market is projected to grow from $3.92bn in 2020 to $13.68bn by 2030, with digitalisation seen as key to ensuring the necessary agility and robustness across operations to cope with today's rapidly changing landscape. The headlines suggest that blockchain technology is set to play a crucial role in this growth, enabling data to be shared in a fast, secure way among different organisations. Yet blockchain is just a data store – in itself, it is not the 'silver bullet' that will unlock the next wave of transformation. The real key to success lies in the gathering of the data in the first place and the building of the records that will underpin digitalisation. Unless organisations gather the right data in the first place - and harness it effectively - even the…

  • EV battery firm Britishvolt under threat of administration

    The company has been developing a £3.8bn gigafactory intended to produce batteries for electric vehicles, in Blyth, Northumberland, where it had hoped to employ up to 3,000 workers. However, the group has been in emergency fundraising talks in recent weeks. The Financial Times reported that the company could slide into insolvency as soon as today (Monday). It is understood that Britishvolt has lined up advisers from accountancy firm EY to oversee the potential administration process. The Government previously backed the firm's plans - at least, in terms of vocal support - for the gigafactory in January and had said that it would support Britishvolt with undisclosed funding, understood to be worth around £100m. However, the firm has yet to receive any of the promised funding. However,…

  • China launches third space station module to enable zero-G experiments

    Launched on the back of a Long March-5B Y4 carrier rocket, the new module blasted off from the coastal Wenchang space base on the tropical island province of Hainan. Known as Mengtian, the new module is expected to spend around 13 hours in flight before it reaches Tiangong. The space station’s first module, Tianhe, only began orbiting last year . Three astronauts – two male and one female – are currently living aboard Tiangong and will help ensure that the docking procedure of the new module to the axial port at one end of Tianhe is completed successfully. Mengtian weighs some 20 tons with a length of 17.9 metres and diameter of 4.2 metres. One of its primary uses will be to provide a space for zero-gravity science experiments. It also has an airlock for exposure to the vacuum of space…

  • Big Bang Competition 2023 opens for young innovators

    The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Competition has opened for entries for 2023.   Inquisitive young minds with an idea to transform the future could win the prestigious title of UK Young Engineer or UK Young Scientist of the Year. Teachers can encourage students to think about issues they’re passionate about or develop solutions to challenges they’ve come across in their own lives by completing a project for entry into the competition. The organisers said that taking part in the UK’s top STEM competition for young people is a good way to inspire students to think big, solve problems and build their confidence. The winners of the competition will be announced at The Big Bang Fair, which will be held at the NEC, Birmingham, from Wednesday 21 June to Friday 23 June 2023. Project…

  • Wireless, battery-free pacemaker cuts pain for sufferers of arrhythmia

    Atrial fibrillation – a form of irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia – leads to more than 454,000 hospitalisations and nearly 160,000 deaths in the US alone each year. Globally, it is estimated that approximately 60 million people are affected by the condition. Pacemakers are used to regulate the heartbeats of people with chronic heart diseases like atrial fibrillation and other forms of arrhythmia although they require an invasive procedure to install and can be extremely painful. University of Arizona researchers believe their new design could eliminate many of the issues faced by users of currently available pacemakers which work by implanting one or two leads into the heart with hooks or screws that send an electrical shock through the heart to reset the beat if a dangerous irregularity…

  • View from India: first ‘Made in India’ military transport aircraft announced

    The aircraft is for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Being Made in India, the transport aircraft can transform the defence sector. Vadodara, Gujarat is where the dream will soar high and come true. The C-295MW, which will be the state-of-the-art transport aircraft, has a capacity of 5-10 tonnes. Designed with contemporary technology, the C-295MW will replace the Avro aircraft of the IAF. This is a first-of-its-kind project wherein a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company. The planes will be manufactured by the Indian Aircraft Contractor, TATA Consortium of Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) led by TASL. The first Made in India aircraft is scheduled from September 2026 and can be used for civilian purposes. The financial outlay…

  • Mars meteor strike reveals water resources as InSight’s power declines

    Some four years after first landing, InSight has seen its power drastically decline in recent months due to dust settling on its solar panels. The spacecraft now is expected to shut down within the next six weeks, bringing the mission’s science to an end. But until its eventual demise, the probe is still making discoveries, including what led to a large quake that occurred in December last year. The quake, which is now thought to be have been caused by a meteoroid, was showed to have surface waves – a kind of seismic wave that ripples along the top of a planet’s crust. Nasa scientists have used the big impact and resulting waves to study the structure of Mars’ crust. The meteoroid is estimated to have spanned 5 to 12 metres – small enough that it would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere…

  • EU approves ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2035

    As an intermediary step towards zero emissions, new CO2 standards will be put in place that require average emissions of new cars to come down by 55 per cent by 2030, and new vans by 50 per cent by 2030. The rules trail similar measures put in place by the UK, which announced in 2020 that a ban on new diesel and petrol cars would be instituted by 2030. The executive vice-president for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, said: “The agreement sends a strong signal to industry and consumers: Europe is embracing the shift to zero-emission mobility. European carmakers are already proving they are ready to step up to the plate, with increasing and increasingly affordable electric cars coming to the market. The speed at which this change has happened over the past few years is remarkable…

  • UK ramps up gas storage capability as biggest site returns to operation

    Gas-storage capacity in the UK has been severely lacking and the country has among the lowest volumes of gas in storage in Europe. This means that consumers have been particularly hard hit by recent wholesale price rises as lower-priced gas cannot be stored for future use. Centrica has brought its Rough gas-storage facility in the North Sea up to 20 per cent of its previous capacity and has made its first injection of gas into the site in over five years. Despite being nowhere full capacity, this immediately makes Rough the UK’s largest gas-storage site once again and adds 50 per cent to the UK’s total gas-storage volume, the firm said. Image credit: Centrica It hopes that Rough will help to balance the UK’s gas market, injecting gas into the facility when prices…

  • Plastic-like material conducts electricity like metal

    The material has molecular fragments that are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well, which goes against all of the standard rules for conductivity. “In principle, this opens up the design of a whole new class of materials that conduct electricity, are easy to shape, and are very robust in everyday conditions,” said John Anderson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago. “Essentially, it suggests new possibilities for an extremely important technological group of materials,” said Jiaze Xie, the first author on the paper. Conductive materials are essential in the creation of electronics and by far the oldest and largest group of conductors is the metals: copper, gold, aluminium. About 50 years ago scientists developed a chemical…

  • Consumers feel 5G is ‘overhyped’ as the UK’s connectivity blackspots are revealed

    Research from Uswitch shows that while a third of Brits (32 per cent) now own a 5G handset, one in six mobile users (16 per cent) feel the technology is overhyped and less than half of 5G users (41 per cent) say they have experienced improvements in speed or reliability. Despite the findings, a quarter (23 per cent) of consumers are planning to buy or upgrade to a 5G handset within the next two years. The results, which come from an Opinium poll of 2,000 UK adults, also show that nearly one in six 5G users in rural areas (17 per cent) say they have never been able to connect to the network, although those living in cities struggle less (6 per cent). Yorkshire has some of the UK’s worst connectivity, with less than half of people failing to get even a reliable 4G signal (48 per cent),…

  • US successfully flight tests hypersonic weapon components

    R&D laboratory Sandia National Laboratories tested the hypersonic weapon components from Nasa’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Wednesday 26 October. According to a statement from the Navy, the test flight evaluated hypersonic weapon communications and navigation equipment and advanced materials that can withstand the heat in a “realistic hypersonic environment”. In this test, experts fired a sounding rocket from the launch pad and conducted various experiments to gather data and learn more about the high-tech electronics and heat-resistant materials used in hypersonic missile components. “The launch today went extremely well,” said Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, the director of strategic systems programmes, who oversaw the test. “We’ve just gotten done looking through our key observables…

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