Collaboration between RSPB and Chester zoo leads to best mating season on record for the semi-aquatic fen raft spider
Thousands of giant spiders that can grow to the size of a human hand are thriving in the UK, thanks to a successful breeding programme from Chester zoo.
The fen raft spider is a harmless arachnid that plays a vital role in aquatic ecosystems, but 15 years ago was on the brink of extinction because of habitat loss.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/05/2024 - 04:30
Expert analysis backs our policy and its benefits for the country. Defeatist critics should take note
Ed Milband is secretary of state for energy security and net zero
Labour fought and won the last election on the argument that every family and business in the country was paying the price of the previous government’s failure to deliver clean, homegrown energy for Britain.
Families and businesses know from the cost of living crisis that our dependence on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators such as Vladimir Putin left the UK vulnerable and exposed to energy price spikes, as well as the escalating costs of climate breakdown. We also know that the drive to clean energy represents the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century. That is why the prime minister has put delivering clean power by 2030 at the heart of one of his five missions for government.
Ed Milband is secretary of state for energy security and net zero
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11/05/2024 - 03:00
Scientists use new technology to sequence the DNA of microscopic ocean creatures for the first time
Off the west coast of Greenland, a 17-metre (56ft) aluminium sailing boat creeps through a narrow, rocky fjord in the Arctic twilight. The research team onboard, still bleary-eyed from the rough nine-day passage across the Labrador Sea, lower nets to collect plankton. This is the first time anyone has sequenced the DNA of the tiny marine creatures that live here.
Watching the nets with palpable excitement is Prof Leonid Moroz, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida’s Whitney marine lab. “This is what the world looked like when life began,” he tells his friend, Peter Molnar, the expedition leader with whom he co-founded the Ocean Genome Atlas Project (Ogap).
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11/05/2024 - 02:44
Lawyer for police argues business should be allowed to continue as Rising Tide threatens to halt exports for 30 hours
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Protesters have scaled back their plan to block the Port of Newcastle to 30 hours, down from an initial 50 hours, amid a legal challenge by New South Wales police to stop the action going ahead.
On Tuesday, police and the protest organiser – Rising Tide – appeared in the supreme court for a second day. Police are challenging the protest, which would involve activists paddling into the harbour on kayaks and rafts to stop coal exports leaving the port.
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11/05/2024 - 01:00
Cubico project at Scout Moor north of Manchester could power the equivalent of 100,000 homes
Plans to build what would be the biggest onshore windfarm in England will move forward this week, the first since the Labour government lifted the de facto ban put in place by the Conservatives nine years ago.
An independent renewable energy developer has submitted plans to erect 21 wind turbines next to an existing windfarm north of Manchester.
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11/04/2024 - 19:56
Former NSW Liberal energy minister Matt Kean debated his former Coalition colleagues about the cost of nuclear power in a parliamentary estimates hearing on Monday. Now chair of the Climate Change Authority, Kean debated Nationals senator Ross Cadell over CSIRO analysis which found nuclear was the most expensive form of large-scale energy available
‘No bigger rent-seeking parasite’ than nuclear industry, Matt Kean tells former Coalition colleagues in heated debate
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11/04/2024 - 19:01
State-owned Neso says Britain could be net exporter of green electricity by end of decade at no extra cost
A plan to create a clean electricity system by 2030 promised by Labour before the election is “immensely challenging” but still “credible” if ministers take urgent action to fix Britain’s sluggish planning system, the energy system operator has said.
Britain could become a net exporter of green electricity by the end of the decade at no extra costs to the energy system under the plans and bills may even fall if ministers make the right policy changes, according to the operator.
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11/04/2024 - 12:44
Union says Defra figures show far more farmers will be hit by budget proposal and warns of ‘militant protest’ to come
The government argument that just 28% of farmers will be affected by the new inheritance tax rules is in direct conflict with data produced by the its own environment department, according to the head of the farmer’s union, as the row over inheritance tax for farmers continued.
The announcement in Rachel Reeves’s budget last week of plans to remove the Agricultural Property Relief inheritance tax exemption from farms worth more than £1m has been met with a storm of fury from across the farming industry and suggestions of “militant protest”.
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11/04/2024 - 11:22
A research team has discovered two remarkable species of bacteria in the tissue of two deep-sea corals from the Gulf of Mexico. These previously unknown symbionts of the corals have an extremely small genome and can't even produce energy from carbohydrates, the team reports. The bacteria species belong to a new family.
11/04/2024 - 10:31
Decision comes after military concludes projects would complicate defending Nato’s newest member against attack
Sweden has vetoed plans for 13 offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea, citing unacceptable security risks.
The country’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Monday that the government had rejected plans for all but one of 14 windfarms planned along the east coast.
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