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Paul Powlesland told he acted illegally after organising volunteers to remove litter, weed and silt from River Roding
A river campaigner who organised a cleanup of his local waterway is being threatened with prosecution by the Environment Agency for acting illegally.
Paul Powlesland, a lawyer and environmental campaigner, organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding, after repeatedly asking the agency to act.
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London Tree Ring project aims to create corridors of plant and animal life around the city to strengthen its biodiversity
Harry Ewing is heaping branches and foliage from the forest floor on to a dead hedge, reinforcing the protective circle around his newly planted trees in Hadley Wood, north London. He is in a glade created by a fallen oak that was previously overrun with thick bramble.
“I feel very happy – the trees are growing already. It’s really nice seeing it when it starts,” says Ewing.
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Scientists are returning to a wartime solution that may be more sustainable than the traditional rubber tree
There is a global shortage of natural rubber and dandelions may be coming to the rescue. In the second world war there was such a severe shortage of rubber that the Allies used the Russian dandelion, Taraxacum koksaghyz, from Kazakhstan. Soviet scientists found the dandelion roots produced enough white milky latex to make natural rubber, but when the war ended producers returned to the traditional rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis.
But the demand for rubber is now increasing, with rubber trees suffering from a fungal disease and the impacts of extreme weather caused by the climate crisis. So, scientists are looking again at using dandelions, with the added benefit that they grow in temperate climates, are a sustainable crop that do not need pesticides and lots of water, and don’t lead to the deforestation common in tropical rubber tree plantations.
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Frome, Somerset: This much-maligned midsummer menace has few friends among humans, but look closely and you might find an orgy of eating and mating
Eyes smarting, throat tickling, nostrils dog-wet, I pick my way along a thready footpath up the combe, only half-prepared for the next irritation. Nettles, I am watching you. But not well enough it seems, for a sneaky one hidden under the skirts of encroaching grasses and umbellifers grazes the back of my bare calf. It induces that tingling somewhere between pain and pleasure – one that quickly develops into a needling throb.
It is hard to love a nettle. This much-loathed plant may be one of the first that many children learn to identify, for their own protection. It has a secondhand look, with wrinkly, crinkly jagged hearts for leaves. It has no sheen; it does not shine. Near-invisible fine hairs on the upper surfaces give the dulled green a dusty, soiled appearance.
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Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balance
The ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.
These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empties fishing grounds and – if occurring frequently – can tip whole ecosystems past the point of recovery.
Karina Von Schuckmann is an IGCC author and senior adviser of Mercator Ocean International
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Sea ice is melting fast, worsening the climate crisis, but a bold attempt to rethicken it is showing early signs of success
‘This would have been a wild dream a year ago,” says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white, the light dusting of snow on top continuing to sparkle.
“It’s incredibly different, the boundary – I mean, you can point to it,” he says. The difference is the result of a bold geoengineering experiment being conducted by Ceccolini’s company, Real Ice, funded by the UK government.
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Almost every child, including those from high-income countries, is now exposed to at least one hazard
Half of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards threatening their health, education and survival, according to a Unicef report.
Globally, children face increasing threats from heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts as the climate crisis worsens, with more than one billion facing at least three of these at once.
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Residents of West Oakland, which suffers from toxic waste and high pollution rates, rally against a coal export facility
West Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.
But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the nearby port of Oakland.
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‘Saddened, stunned, surprised and haunted’ is how one surfer describes the mood at the popular Sydney beach two days after Leah Stewart was bitten by a great white
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Under a clear blue sky on a Monday morning, Coogee beach in Sydney’s east is quiet.
A few swimmers have ventured into the ocean pools at the northern and southern ends of the beach. Most others sit on the sand, looking towards the water.
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Amid fears the wreck will be more accessible to explorers – and new species – as the climate warms, conservationists want to create the region’s first underwater protected area
The harsh temperatures, treacherous currents and shifting pack ice of the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea, which crushed and sank his ship, Endurance, in 1915, led Ernest Shackleton to describe it as the “worst portion of the worst sea in the world”.
For more than a century, the inhospitable conditions, which present a challenge even for modern icebreaker ships, helped to protect the lost wreck, which was discovered in 2022, its structure still largely intact.
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Vrsta bijelih krvnih stanica u imunološkom sustavu, poznata kao neutrofili, može smanjiti učinkovitost imunoterapije raka, tvrdi nova studija. Naime, rezultati pokazuju da signalna molekula u tumoru utječe na neutrofile, smanjujući učinak liječenja.
Dvostruko ciljana CAR T stanična terapija za rekurentni glioblastom (GBM), koja se primjenjuje izravno u cerebrospinalnu tekućinu (CSF), pokreće široki imunološki odgovor, s aktivacijom prirodnih stanica ubojica (NK) povezanom s boljim ishodima pacijenata i duljim ukupnim preživljavanjem, pokazuje nova studija.
Široko korišteni dodatak prehrani za zdravlje zglobova pod lupom je nakon što su znanstvenici povezali glukozamin s pogoršanim pamćenjem kod miševa s Alzheimerovom bolešću i lošijim ishodima u stvarnom svijetu kod osoba s demencijom.
Dulja izloženost ženskim hormonima tijekom života može povećati rizik od raka štitnjače kod žena, pokazuje nova studija. Istraživanje sugerira da reproduktivni i hormonalni čimbenici mogu biti uključeni u karcinogenezu štitnjače.
Japanski znanstvenici identificirali su prethodno neprepoznati mehanizam kojim strukturne promjene u malom mozgu utječu na socijalno ponašanje. Studija pokazuje da poremećaj specijaliziranih izvanstaničnih struktura koje okružuju cerebelarne neurone mijenja neuronsku aktivnost u moždanim krugovima uključenim u socijalno ponašanje. Ovo otkriće pruža novi uvid u neuronske mehanizme povezane s poremećajem iz autističnog spektra (PAS).
Kineski znanstvenici razvili su novu kombiniranu terapiju koja značajno poboljšava ishode liječenja i preživljavanje kod pacijenata s akutnom mijeloičnom leukemijom (AML) s mutacijama gena FLT3. Studija je otkrila da kombinirana upotreba inhibitora FLT3 kvizartiniba i inhibitora sinteze proteina omaketaksina, zajednički nazvana QUIZOM, učinkovito suzbija rast stanica raka i aktivira imunološki sustav pacijenta, postižući složenu stopu potpune remisije (CRc) od oko 83% uz smanjenje rizika od recidiva.
Smrtni slučajevi i dijagnoze mezotelioma i dalje su u porastu u SAD-u unatoč desetljećima regulacije azbesta i smanjene industrijske upotrebe. Studija je također otkrila malo poboljšanje u preživljavanju i pokazala da ovaj rak koji se može spriječiti i dalje nesrazmjerno pogađa žene i nekoliko država visokog rizika povezanih s brodogradnjom, rudarstvom i naslijeđenom izloženošću azbestu.
Dugo smatran uglavnom centrom za kretanje, mali mozak može igrati ključnu ulogu u kognitivnoj otpornosti, a novi MRI dokazi povezuju njegovu strukturu s oštrijim razmišljanjem u kasnijoj životnoj dobi. Naime, nedavno objavljena studija sugerira da mali mozak može doprinijeti kognitivnoj rezervi i pomoći u podršci kognitivnim performansama kod starijih populacija.
Smanjenje oštećenja srca tijekom srčanog udara (infarkt miokarda) ostaje jedan od glavnih izazova u kardiologiji, čak i kada se blokirana koronarna arterija pravovremeno ponovno otvori. Dio oštećenja miokarda i dalje je teško spriječiti unatoč napretku u reperfuzijskim terapijama. U potrazi za rješenjima za ograničavanje ovog oštećenja, studija koju je vodio IR Sant Pau, pokazuje da intravenska primjena atorvastatina tijekom samog ishemijskog događaja može poboljšati zaštitu srca u usporedbi s primjenom oralne udarne doze prije infarkta.
Upravljanje krvnim tlakom nakon mehaničke trombektomije zbog akutnog ishemijskog moždanog udara može zahtijevati promjenu pristupa. Naime, novo kliničko ispitivanje pokazalo je da prilagodba ciljeva krvnog tlaka stupnju cerebralne reperfuzije značajno poboljšava funkcionalni oporavak pacijenata bez povećanja rizika od komplikacija.
