• ‘Infinitely recyclable’ plastics created using engineered microbes

    Unlike glass and aluminium, every time plastic is recycled, the polymer chain grows shorter which decreases its quality. The same piece of plastic can only be recycled about 2-3 times before it can no longer be used to make new products. But a team of researchers at three facilities at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK. “This is the first time that bioproducts have been integrated to make a PDK that is predominantly bio-based,” said Brett Helms, staff scientist at the Molecular Foundry who led the project. “And it’s the first time that you see a bio-advantage over using petrochemicals, both with respect to the material’s properties and the cost of producing it at scale…

  • Climate change ramping up faster in Asia than rest of the world

    In a new report, the body said that said that melting glaciers alongside rising sea levels raises the prospect of more disruption in the future. Asia is currently warming faster than the global average. There were 81 weather, climate and water-related disasters in Asia in 2022, of which 83 per cent were flood and storm events. These disasters caused the deaths of more than 5,000 people, affected the lives of a further 50 million people and caused more than $36bn (£28bn) in economic damages. “In 2022, many areas in Asia experienced drier-than-normal conditions and drought. China, in particular, suffered prolonged drought conditions, which affected water availability and the power supply. The estimated economic losses from the drought affecting many regions in China were over $7.6bn. Pakistan…

  • US hid conducted a ‘multi-decade’ UFO programme, whistleblower claims

    The declarations have been made during a historic hearing of the House Oversight Committee, focused on the issue of unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAPs) and the need for more transparency on the subject from the military. The session was opened by the committee’s Republican chairman Glenn Grothman, who stated that a “lack of transparency” had fuelled “wild speculation” and eroded “public trust” in government institutions. The Committee then heard from several witnesses who claimed they had first-hand experience of interacting with objects that seemed to defy the laws of physics, stating that they posed a national security problem.  David Grusch, a former leader of the US Department of Defense’s UAP programme, claimed the government conducted a “multi-decade” programme aimed at analysing…

  • E-bike batteries should fall under the same rules as fireworks, charity says

    Batteries for e-bikes and e-scooters should be regulated like fireworks and heavy machinery to better ensure their safety, according to the Electrical Safety First (ESF)   Battery Breakdown report . Currently, e-bikes and e-scooter manufacturers can self-declare whether their products meet safety standards. However, the charity argues that the batteries should be reviewed by a third party before being placed in the UK market due to the risk of fires they pose. The recommendation is similar to the requirements made for specific products such as  pyrotechnics, heavy machinery and medical devices. It also resembles the requirements introduced in New York City in March 2023 following a spate of fatal fires. The report also follows rising international concern over the risk of fires posed…

  • Advanced imaging technique could boost Great Barrier Reef recovery

    Covering less than 0.1 per cent of the ocean surface, coral reefs support 25 per cent of all marine life. But according to Unesco, 21 of 29 World Heritage reefs have been damaged through heat stress and bleaching. In warmer or polluted waters, corals expel algae, which provide sustenance through photosynthesis; the corals then turn white and can die if the water temperature remains high. Following the latest bleaching, the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, parts of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, Australia, is estimated to have lost two-thirds of its corals, mainly in the northern section. The newly developed method is being used to monitor the recruitment success of newly settled corals through an artificial process whereby microscopic larvae are raised in floating…

  • BT start-up plans to turn 60,000 street cabinets into EV charging points

    BT’s start-up and innovation company Etc. has today announced it will begin pilots to transform decommissioned street cabinets into EV charging points in a bid to accelerate the UK’s journey to net zero.  The first phase of the pilots will take place in Northern Ireland this autumn. If successful, it will be expanded to the public with more pilot locations added across the UK later in the year. A study from 2021 found that the installation of chargers needs to   increase by five times   the current rate if the plan to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 is to be achieved. BT said the pilots will provide critical insight into the viability of scaling up EV charging to more locations across its estate.   “With the ban on sales of internal combustion engine vehicles coming in…

  • UK will fail to protect 30 per cent of English land and seas without action, peers say

    A report from the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee said that an “urgent step change” is needed if the target is going to be delivered on time. It found that only around 6.5 per cent of natural habitats in England are effectively protected. An additional three million hectares (23.5 per cent) will need to be given protected status in order to achieve the ‘30 by 30’ target. This equates to an area roughly one and a half times the size of Wales. The report said that improving nature in England would bring a host of benefits, including improvements to public health and wellbeing as well as tackling climate change. Protected areas in England will also play an important role in restoring nature and meeting internationally agreed biodiversity targets. It concluded that…

  • EU Council adopts green fuel requirements for the maritime sector

    The new EU law to decarbonise the maritime sector has cleared its final adoption stage, putting an end to two years of intense negotiations.  The main objective of the initiative is to increase the demand for and consistent use of renewable and low-carbon fuels, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector. Under the new agreement, shipping will be covered by the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) from 2024 and FuelEU Maritime from 2025. As part of this effort, the new regulation includes measures to ensure the greenhouse gas intensity of fuels used by the shipping sector decreases by 2 per cent in 2025 and by as much as 80 per cent by 2050. Additionally, there will be rules for the infrastructure of alternative fuels, including requirements for using shore power in selected…

  • AI-equipped speeding camera test catches 500 driving offences

    Hampshire and Thames Valley Police forces deployed the Sensor Test Vehicle, which is made by Aecom, on the A34 and A303 earlier this month. The van is equipped with two cameras, which capture suspected offences. One of them is set at a shallow angle to identify mobile phone use to the ear, and to see whether the seatbelt is going across the body or hanging down behind the driver. The second camera has a steep view, providing visibility of mobile phone use low down, to detect behaviour such as texting near the steering wheel or door. This second camera also gives further evidence of seatbelt use by checking the presence of the lap portion of the belt and confirming that the seatbelt is clipped into the buckle. All images of possible offences are automatically captured and sent to be checked…

  • Researchers warn of collision dangers between drones and planes

    Researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and Unmanned Robotic Systems Analysis (URSA) have developed a new way to accurately count and objectively analyse close encounters between drones and aeroplanes – without depending solely on pilot sightings. The team analysed over 1.8 million piloted aircraft operations and nearly 460,000 flights by small, uncrewed aerial systems (sUAS) around Dallas–Fort Worth airport.  During a three-year period, the team identified 24 near-midair collisions (NMACs) between sUAS and aircraft, including two in 2018, one in 2019, 14 in 2020 and seven in 2021. The majority of close calls occurred within 1.5 miles of a runway approach or departure zone. To avoid collisions, the researchers recommended extending the runway exclusion zone for…

  • UK universities sign deal to help build Europe’s largest solar telescope

    Launched in 2008, the European Solar Telescope (EST) project aims to provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Construction on the telescope, which will be capable of monitoring ‘space weather’ events, will be supported by the University of Sheffield, which signed the deal today with EST’s Canary Foundation on behalf of the United Kingdom Universities Consortium (UKUC). Leading the UKUC, the University of Sheffield has committed itself and the universities of Aberystwyth, Durham, Exeter, Glasgow and Queen’s University Belfast, along with a further six European countries, to the construction of the telescope at the El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory at La Palma in Spain. The project’s conceptual design study estimates €150m to…

  • Solar energy could help purify water, researchers find

    A team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have suggested that renewable solar energy could play a crucial role in purifying water. Currently, water purification processes rely on electrochemical separation processes that are able to separate different particles within a solution. Although energy-efficient, this technique relies on  energy derived from nonrenewable sources, such as fossil fuels. Instead, the research team has made a breakthrough by integrating solar energy into the electrochemical separation process using a semiconductor, demonstrating that water remediation can be powered in part – and perhaps exclusively – by renewable energy sources. In this method, the chemists used a semiconductor to integrate solar energy into an electrochemical separation…

  • 2030 petrol ban remains but heat pump transition could be relaxed, Gove admits

    Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “We’re committed to maintaining our policy of ensuring that by 2030 there are no new petrol and diesel cars being sold. “I’m sure there are some people who would like to change that policy, I understand. But that policy remains.” But in another interview with Times Radio today, the secretary of state for levelling up was ambivalent about efforts to shift the UK over to heat pumps from traditional gas boilers. “We’re living through a real cost-of-living challenge and what we don’t want to do is to force individuals to pay excessive sums at this stage – we need to take a proportionate approach,” he said. In January, the government’s net zero review concluded that no new homes should be built with a gas boiler from 2025. It also proposed…

  • TSMC to invest $2.9bn in Taiwanese advanced chip plant

    Taiwanese chip maker TSMC plans to invest nearly T$90bn (£2.4bn) in an advanced packaging facility in the Tongluo Science Park in northern Taiwan.  “To meet market needs, TSMC is planning to establish an advanced packaging fab,” the company said. The announcement follows last week’s comments from the company’s CEO, CC Wei, who told analysts that TSMC plans to roughly double its capacity for advanced packaging capacity in 2024 compared with 2023, in order to meet “strong demand” for AI chips from its customers.  The packaging process for advanced semiconductors uses  high-technology processes to place multiple chips into a single device, creating  a more powerful computer chip. TSMC has said its chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS) capacity is “very tight”, and the firm could struggle to…

  • Sizewell C receives £170m funding injection to speed up construction start

    The facility is expected to cost at least £20bn and generate energy at a more expensive price when compared to renewables such as wind and solar. The project is planned to commence before 2024, with construction taking between nine and 12 years, depending on developments at the oft-delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. French energy giant EDF recently pushed back Hinkley Point’s first day of operation to September 2028. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said the £170m funding for Sizewell C would be used to prepare the site for future construction, procure key components from the project’s supply chain and expand its workforce. The plant is being positioned as providing reliable, low-carbon baseload power to the UK energy grid, with a lifespan of…

  • Virgin Media 02 to cut up to 2,000 jobs by December

    Mobile operator Virgin Media O2 is to slash up to 2,000 UK jobs by the end of this year, in the first large-scale round of layoffs the company has overseen since its creation in 2021.  The group said on Tuesday 25 July that it had briefed employee unions and representative groups on its proposals. The redundancies will  include  800 role reductions that were already announced, the BBC has reported. “As we continue to integrate and transform as a company, we are currently consulting on proposals to simplify our operating model to better deliver for customers, which will see a reduction in some roles this year,” the company said. “While we know any period of change can be difficult, we are committed to supporting all of our people.” The firm added it was supporting its staff as it has …

  • Sustainably grown barley trialled for whiskey-making in Scotland

    Barley makes up 63 per cent of Scotland’s cereal crop and is used for malting and distilling, as well as animal feed. Its production depends heavily on nitrogen fertilisers made from fossil fuels. Using more sustainable fertilisers will help make barley ‘greener’, but farmers and the whisky industry want to ensure that their use won’t make the crop less suitable for whisky production. A team of researchers from Heriot-Watt University and University College Dublin have been testing three types of sustainable fertilisers or biostimulants. Dr Angela Feechan, a plant pathologist at Heriot-Watt, said: “The Irish BioCrop project is carrying out field trials at the moment, and we’ll be using their grain. “They are investigating how biostimulants made from algae, bacteria and yeast perform…

  • British Gas predicted to reach record profits – report

    British Gas, the UK’s largest energy firm, is on course to report profits of £857m over the first six months of trading this year, according to Investec. UBS, however, has predicted a slightly lower figure of £687m. Centrica, the company’s owner, has already reported that the supplier’s interim profits will significantly exceed the previous record of £585m set in 2010, although it has not yet provided an exact figure. The surge in profits would represent a remarkable increase compared with the £98m earned during the same period in 2022. Centrica is also expected to sustain its own robust earnings, having recovered from pandemic-driven losses after posting a £135m loss in 2020.  The company explained this as a result of Ofcom’s increase in the energy price cap , a measure that aimed to…

  • Manufacturing exports to the EU decline in most regions in England

    An analysis of official data shows that the UK’s overall share of manufacturing exports to the EU increased in 2022 to 52 per cent from 50 per cent in 2019. However, this was a result of sharp increases in the share of exports to the EU from Northern Ireland and Scotland over the same period, without which the overall UK share of goods exports would be on a downward trend. Northern Ireland currently enjoys a unique ‘dual access’ position retaining access to the Single Market for goods and being able to trade goods freely into the rest of Great Britain, while in Scotland the oil and gas sector and its supply chains boosted exports to the EU during the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The share of goods exports to both Asia & Oceania and North America has remained relatively stable, the report found…

  • Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as ‘X’

    On Sunday night, Twitter’s headquarters were lit up with the company's new ‘X’ logo,   which has now replaced the company’s iconic bird on the website, and the profile badges of company employees. Elon Musk, the company’s owner, and Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s new CEO, have both discussed plans to transform the social media platform into an “ everything app ” that would eventually provide payments, banking and commerce services.  Twitter’s official company name was changed to X Corp in April 2023, but the company had not yet rebranded on the platform.  This changed on Sunday evening, when Musk announced the company’s plans to rebrand the following day, saying that “soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”. He added: “If a good enough X logo is posted…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Chinese driverless vehicles present spying risk, US transport chief warns

    It followed a letter earlier in the week from a bipartisan group of Representatives urging the Administration to investigate and limit the operations of such firms in the US. “Whether we are talking about hardware or software, in the same way there are concerns around telecom or TikTok, there are concerns around transportation technologies,” Buttigieg said in an interview with Reuters. The letter, which was sent by Representatives Tim Walberg (R-MI), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Bob Latta (R-OH), and Marc Veasy (D-TX), admitted that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are the key to “reducing and even eliminating traffic fatalities”. “But Americans will not benefit from the future autonomous vehicles (AV) promise to bring if the United States continues its current trajectory of inaction…

  • TSMC delays opening of Arizona chip plant

    The company's chairman has revealed that TSMC has not been able to recruit enough skilled workers to install advanced equipment in the original timeline, and is now planing on sending Taiwanese technicians to train US workers.  The Arizona factory, which has been under construction since April 2021, was originally scheduled to begin production of 4 -nanometre chips in 2024. A second fab that will produce smaller, more complex 3nm chips is scheduled to open in 2026. TSMC made the announcement during its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, July 20th. The company's chairman Mark Liu stated that TSMC was “encountering certain challenges, as there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with the specialised expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility…

  • Google launches AI tool to help journalists write news articles

    The paper reported that Google has held meetings with the NYT itself as well as the Washington Post and News Corp which owns the Wall Street Journal. The search giant reportedly said the tool, which has been dubbed Genesis, will help journalists to produce different writing styles and offer options for headlines rather than pitching it as a full-scale replacement. “These tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles,” Google said. But according to the NYT, some of the executives who were in the room while Google was pitching found the proposal “unsettling”. Earlier this month, the Associated Press signed a deal with OpenAI to explore the possibility of using generative AI to create news articles…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Flying taxi factory to be built in Brazil

    On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont, Brazilian aeronautics firm Embraer and its subsidiary Eve Air Mobility have announced their plans to build a factory for  "electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft" or eVTOL.  The companies have already received orders for 2,850 eVTOLs worth about $1.5bn (£1.2bn), from 28 clients in several countries, including helicopter operators, airlines and flight-sharing platforms, according to AFP. Artist rending of flying taxi/ Eve Air Mobility Image credit: Eve Air Mobility The aircraft resembles small helicopters - according to designs - with enough space for up to six customers. The vehicles will be 100 per cent electric, allowing for emissions-free travel. Initially

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