Scientists observe decreased motor function in rodents exposed to microplastics
Microplastics can move through mice brains and block blood vessels, essentially mimicking blood clots that could potentially be fatal or otherwise disrupt brain function.
The findings are detailed in a peer-reviewed paper for which researchers for the first time used real-time imaging to track bits of plastic as they moved through and accumulated in brain blood vessels. When one piece of plastic got stuck, others accumulated behind it, like a “car crash”, the authors reported.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/11/2025 - 06:00
02/11/2025 - 02:00
Industry says ‘pavement tax’ due to disparity in VAT rates is holding back transition away from fossil fuels
Electric vehicle drivers will spend an extra £85m on UK tax when using public car chargers this year because of a disparity in VAT rates that the industry has said is holding back the transition away from fossil fuels.
Home users of electricity pay just 5% VAT compared with the 20% rate that applies to businesses – including electric car charger operators. That means that people charging a car using public chargers face higher costs.
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02/11/2025 - 02:00
A wave of incidents threatens the survival of the species in the country, say conservationists
Inside the Pakistan Museum of Natural History, in Islamabad, two taxidermists work on a leopard skin. They scrape away at the remaining flesh and sprinkle the underside with boric acid powder. It’s difficult to look away from the two holes where the leopard’s eyes should be.
“We ask conservation groups, if they find any dead specimen, to relay it to us so that we can preserve it and make it available to young researchers,” says Muhammad Asif Khan, the museum’s director of zoological science. “This particular leopard died from gunshot wounds in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region,” he says.
Clockwise from main image: taxidermists at the Pakistan Natural History Museum work on a leopard specimen that was shot in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region; Asif Khan holds a piece of shot; a bullet hole or shot wound can be seen in the pelt
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02/11/2025 - 01:00
If Starmer and Reeves really want a greener, cleaner, wilder nation, then why attack vital state bodies that are already on their knees?
This might sound astonishing, but the UK government’s core programme now appears to be the same as Donald Trump’s: dismantling the administrative state. There’s less theatre, but the results could prove harder to contest. Absurd? Consider the evidence.
Take the government’s brutal expulsion of the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, Marcus Bokkerink. His crime, it seems, was to take his role seriously, seeking to prevent the formation of corporate monopolies. He has been replaced with the former manager of Amazon UK, a company widely accused of monopolistic practices. This is pure Trump: kick out the regulator and insert someone from a company they were seeking to regulate.
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02/10/2025 - 21:47
Order rolls back Biden policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastic as Trump calls it a ‘ridiculous situation’
On Monday, Donald Trump took aim at a “ridiculous situation” that directly affects his daily life: paper straws.
He signed an executive order that rolls back a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.
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02/10/2025 - 13:33
Government cranks handle again for group owning Yorkshire power plant because cheaper generating capacity not in place
UK halves subsidies for Drax and says it must use 100% sustainable wood
Surprise, surprise, a mighty £7bn of subsidies since 2012 have not been enough to get Drax to stand on its own feet. More bungs are required to keep the wood fires burning at the enormous power plant in North Yorkshire – this time an estimated £1.8bn from 2027-31.
The energy minister Michael Shanks at least sounded embarrassed. He railed against the “unacceptably large profits” Drax has made, said past subsidy arrangements “did not deliver a good enough deal for bill payers” and vowed that that the definition of a “sustainable” wood pellet would be tightened. But the bottom line is that the government has agreed to crank the subsidy handle once again, just at a slower rate.
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02/10/2025 - 12:00
Pesticide-backed proposed law that opponents call ‘Cancer Gag Act’ pits Iowa farm groups against each other
Pesticide company efforts to push through laws that could block litigation against them is igniting battles in several US farm states and pitting some farm groups against each other.
Laws have been introduced in at least eight states so far and drafts are circulating in more than 20 states, backed by a deluge of advertising supporting the measures.
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02/10/2025 - 10:19
Secondhand market thrived as sales of new EVs also reached highest levels to date, SMMT trade body says
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A record number of used electric vehicles (EVs) were sold in the UK last year, as prices eased and the choice of cars widened, according to industry data.
Total sales of used cars rose by 5.5% in 2024, as 7.6m vehicles changed hands, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Sales rose in every month last year, as they did in 2023.
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02/10/2025 - 10:00
v-Fluence halts operations after widespread backlash over private portal profiling environmental health advocates
A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has said it has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash, after its actions were revealed by the Guardian and other reporting partners.
The St Louis, Missouri-based company, v-Fluence, said it is shuttering the service, which it called a “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops.
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02/10/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: The new Queensland government reversed Labor’s decision to set limits on visitor numbers
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K’gari’s world heritage advisory committee (KWHAC) has advised the Queensland government the island’s ecology risks being “destroyed” by “overtourism”, putting pressure on the LNP’s promise not to cap visitation to the island.
The recommendation was contained in the body’s world heritage strategic plan released on Friday and contradicts the policy adopted by the new government.
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