Volunteers asked to go about normal routine while paying more attention to natural world
The start of a new year: a time for optimism, ambitious plans to improve the world, and the grim suspicion that the first couple of months may well be a miserable slog through the deepest of winter’s gloom.
But for those who fear the cold and dark ahead, help is on the horizon. Researchers in Canada are investigating a simple trick they hope will boost flagging spirits even when the days are short and frost is in the air.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/25/2024 - 09:00
Scientists search for a variety to withstand the climate crisis as high temperatures and drought can stress trees
The climate crisis is increasingly affecting agriculture in the United States, including the production of Christmas trees.
Like all crops, Christmas trees are vulnerable to a changing climate, as the United States continues to experience warmer temperatures, more frequent and severe heat, increased rainfall, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes, as a result of global warming and the climate crisis – primarily driven by humans’ burning of fossil fuels.
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12/25/2024 - 08:00
Evaluation could lead to limits or bans on substances commonly used in the production of plastic and rubber
The Environmental Protection Agency is launching a formal review of five highly toxic plastic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, the notorious compound at the center of the East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck fire.
The move could lead to strong limits or bans on the substances.
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12/25/2024 - 04:05
In a little understood quirk of nature foresters have been putting the aspen tree under duress to promote flowering
On a nature reserve deep in the Scottish Highlands there is a polytunnel which houses a small forest of slender grey aspen trees. It is known as the “torture chamber”.
The aspen is one of the UK’s scarcest but most valuable trees. And to produce the tiny, delicate aspen seeds being harvested by the charity Trees for Life, these 104 specimens are deliberately made to suffer.
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12/24/2024 - 10:00
Campaigners say consumption such as travel, gifts and food are destroying planet and the meaning of Christmas
Whether out of poverty or virtue, many of us spend much of the year reining in our appetites to save our pennies and our health. But at Christmas many of us put our worries aside and go wild in an orgy of lavish gifting, extensive travel and a gluttonous feeding frenzy.
This carnival of consumption has a cost: not just to our wallets and our waistlines, but also to the climate.
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12/24/2024 - 06:30
More than 160 Chinese nationals were found living in ‘degrading’ conditions and working excessive hours
Business live – latest updates
Brazilian authorities have halted the construction of a factory for the Chinese electric vehicle company BYD, after they found more than 160 Chinese nationals living in “slavery-like” conditions.
The workers, based in a construction site in the north-eastern Brazilian state Bahia, were found to be labouring for excessive hours – sometimes for seven days straight – and living in “degrading” accommodation.
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12/24/2024 - 06:01
Government to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars but will relax rules that force firms to sell more electric vehicles every year
Business live – latest updates
The British car industry has welcomed government proposals that could allow Toyota Prius-style hybrids to continue to be sold in the UK after 2030, as part of a package of measures to ease regulations on carmakers.
The UK government published details on Christmas Eve of a consultation on which cars should be allowed on sale after 2030 – when sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned – as well as on how it will relax rules that force manufacturers to sell more electric cars every year.
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12/24/2024 - 06:00
Betchcott Hill has glorious views across the county and a mix of habitats home to curlew, cuckoo and lapwing
One of the most scenic and nature-rich spots in western England could be protected for ever in a boost for the curlew, cuckoo, lapwing and snipe that nest there.
Betchcott Hill has views across much of the county and its mix of grassland, wet flushes, woodland and heath sings with the calls of endangered birds in spring.
This article was amended on 24 December 2024 to correct the size of the site, which is 50 hectares, not 50 acres.
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12/24/2024 - 03:00
From the Flask glacier to King George Island, intrepid researchers expect good cheer, snow and penguins
Many of us will not get a white Christmas this year, but a group of scientists are guaranteed one while carrying out research on the Antarctic peninsula.
While ice and good cheer are expected, their yuletide activities will be very different from those back home. Dr Kate Winter, of Northumbria University, and colleagues will be deploying instruments on Flask glacier to study the way that meltwater affects how quickly glaciers flow into the ocean.
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12/24/2024 - 00:00
Conservationists and scientists in New Zealand were astonished to find the world’s rarest whale washed ashore in the South Island in July. As only the seventh spade-toothed whale identified, and with none ever seen alive, this month saw the first dissection of a complete specimen
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