17 NOV 2023 Keeping control of our planet’s thermostat is proving tricky these days. Temperatures are rising slowly, and inaction is proving costly as we awkwardly lurch towards a cleaner future. Some industries are proving stubbornly difficult to decarbonise, and we are likely to miss the key 1.5°C warming target. One …
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14 NOV 2023 On a cloudy morning this past April, more than eighty men and women, dressed in matching red windbreakers, stood in orderly lines in front of the train station in Kashgar, a city in Xinjiang, China. The people were Uyghurs, one of China’s largest ethnic minorities, and they …
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05 NOV 2023 Customers in the United States need to be extra cautious about what eye drop products they choose to buy, as some options have the potential to cause dangerous infections. Millions of people in the US use eye drops every day, so the relative risk of infection remains …
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04 NOV 2023 A new study reveals a previously undiscovered way that we can feel light touches: directly through our hair follicles. Before now, it was thought that only nerve endings in the skin and around the hair follicles could transmit the sensation. The team behind the study, led by researchers …
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01 NOV 2023 It’s hard to overstate how crucial Greenland, and its kilometres-thick ice layer, is to climate change. If all that ice melted, the sea would rise by about seven metres – the height of a house. But what happens if we fail to limit warming to 1.5 °C (as …
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27 OCT 2023 German authorities are leading a search and rescue mission in the North Sea after two cargo ships collided off the coast of Germany this morning. Two crewmembers from the UK-registered cargo ship Verity were rescued and the body of the third was recovered, while four others are still missing …
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23 OCT 2023 Over 100 nautical miles off the coast of China in the Yellow Sea, a huge octagonal structure rests in the water. This is no new-look oil rig. It’s Deep Blue 1, China’s first offshore aquaculture base for farming salmon. At its corners, the yellow octagon has steel columns extending …
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19 OCT 2023 What do British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and singer Bruce Springsteen have in common? They’re among an ever-growing group of public figures touting the benefits of eating just one meal a day. As a result, the one meal a day (OMAD) diet is the latest attention-grabbing weight loss trend. Advocates claim …
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18 OCT 2023 In the world of lithium-ion batteries, smartphones take centre stage. Yet they’ve also sparked an ongoing debate: does prolonged (or overnight) charging wreak havoc on your battery? A number of factors determine a phone battery’s lifespan, including its manufacturing age and its chemical age. The latter refers …
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16 OCT 2023 In 2020, Oxford-based philosopher Toby Ord published a book called The Precipice about the risk of human extinction. He put the chances of “existential catastrophe” for our species during the next century at one in six. It’s quite a specific number, and an alarming one. The claim drew headlines at the …
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