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Government keen to avoid panic as oil price surges, but perhaps households need advice on reducing consumption
Labour ministers asked in recent days about the looming energy crisis sparked by the Iran war, including Keir Starmer himself, have essentially stuck to that reassuring wartime slogan: keep calm and carry on.
“I think people should go about their lives as normal, knowing that the government is taking action to bring energy bills down,” James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.
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Merlin could disappear in worst-case scenario, with British isles facing ecological ‘point of no return’
The merlin, Britain’s smallest bird of prey, is one of more than 200 species that will become extinct in the UK if action is not taken to curb emissions and unsustainable land use, a study has claimed.
According to the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), there is a 20-year window in which decisions on climate and land use will determine the fate of dozens of Britain’s native species.
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The more than 100 bat species living in the Mozambican reserve’s labyrinth of caves play a key role in maintaining a fragile ecosysytem that benefits wildlife and people
• Words and photographs by Kang-Chun Cheng
After wriggling gingerly into a damp, cool cave, Raúl da Silva Armando Chomela waits for his eyes to adjust. Donning latex gloves, a helmet fitted with a headlamp, and a mask to protect his lungs from fine particles and bacteria, the molecular biologist from the Mozambican port city of Beira gazes into the shadowy recesses for signs of bats.
He has spent two years in these claustrophobic spaces studying the winged mammals and their excrement. “Guano is far more than just bat droppings,” he says. “If I had to describe it in one word, I’d say ‘ecosystem’.”
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Research from the University of Exeter find that the method could help reduce thefts by as much as 50%
Gulls thrive on snatching chips from unwary beachgoers, but now research shows that painting a pair of eyes on takeaway boxes could put gulls off, reducing thefts by as much as 50%.
Laura Kelley, from the University of Exeter, and colleagues presented herring gulls with tempting takeaways at a number of seaside towns in Devon and Cornwall. When faced with a choice between a box with eyes painted on it and a plain box, the gulls were slower to approach the box with eyes and less likely to peck at it. And the findings, which are published in Ecology and Evolution, show that the effect is sustained, with gulls remaining wary of the boxes with eyes on them, even after repeated exposure.
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Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire: These early spring bloomers are a favourite of mine, a model of nature’s generosity, yet so often ignored
The drier days of March are always marked by the hum of dutiful grass-cutting on our urban Midlands housing estate, and so I know I will have to look to the gutters and pavements to spot my favourite spring flower. Sure enough, the first one I see is blooming in a crack beside a crumbling wall on the busy main road. I can’t help but let out a joyful shout, leaning down to cradle its fierce lion head in my fingers. Hello, dandelion, how I’ve missed you!
Perhaps it’s being a wheelchair user, closer to the ground than most, that has given me a special place in my heart for them, or perhaps it’s because I’ve always felt like a weed myself, inconvenient and growing in the wrong place. Either way, I have long been kindred spirits with keen-eyed toddlers who love to carry them in their fists. I’ve often joked that my bridal bouquet will be dandelions, please. I can honestly think of no finer flower. Why? Because there is no better example of nature’s generosity than a dandelion.
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Government told to focus on transition to mix of wind, solar, tidal and nuclear energy
More drilling in the North Sea would do nothing to improve the UK’s energy security, former military leaders have said, as a new analysis finds no fossil fuel importer is safe from chokepoints in the global supply chain.
The government should focus on a rapid transition to a mix of wind, solar, tidal and nuclear energy to ensure the UK’s future security, the former military leaders told the Guardian, as well as a programme of energy efficiency and a “major renewal” of the electricity grid.
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‘Precious ocean life is being pushed to the brink,’ say campaigners, arguing that overfished marine areas are ‘protected only on paper’
Almost 40% of England’s seas are designated as marine protected areas. Their purpose, the government says, is “to protect and recover rare threatened and important marine ecosystems … from damage caused by human activities”.
And yet in the four years to 2024, trawlers using vast nets, including those that scour the seabed, caught more than 1.3m tonnes of fish within them, according to official figures that campaigners say show they are “little more than lines on a map”.
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After being pushed to ‘distress’ by people trying to film and take selfies with the cattle in Kent, the fold has had to be taken away from public view
Name: Highland cows.
Age: More than 1,000 years old.
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Home to one of the world’s largest deposits of freshwater, the Great Lakes region will soon host next-generation generators – just as prices are being hiked across the US
Submersible hydroelectric technology deployed across the Great Lakes could become a key cog in clean energy efforts, supporters say, amid surging electricity demand and costs.
Home to one of the largest deposits of freshwater on the planet, the Great Lakes region has on its shores some of the largest cities in North America in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Detroit, where electricity demand is growing. While none of the five Great Lakes have significant tides or currents to fuel hydropower, several of the waterways that link the lakes do.
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A death rate of up to 90%, attributed to warming seas, is threatening the trade in Hiroshima prefecture, which produces most of the country’s farmed oysters
The Kure oyster festival is doing a brisk trade in beer and grilled meat on sticks. But the longest queues are in front of the oyster stalls, where chefs shuffle piles of mottled shellfish across griddles, waiting for their hinges to ease and reveal their fleshy interiors.
Nobuyuki Miyaoka, who is attending the festival with his son, daughter-in-law and their young children, likes his oysters steamed with sake and served with a few drops of tangy ponzu sauce. “The local oysters were fine until this year,” he says. “They used to be a lot bigger … look how small they are.”
Chefs prepare oysters at the Kure oyster festival. This year, local businesses and consumers say the shellfish have been scarce and smaller than usual
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Test krvi mogao bi pomoći u identificiranju osoba s većim rizikom od kognitivnog pada godinama prije nego što je moguća tradicionalna dijagnoza, tvrde znanstvenici s University of East Anglia. Naime, oni su otkrili da suptilne promjene u krvi mogu otkriti najranije znakove kognitivnog pada mnogo prije nego što simptomi postanu očiti. Te promjene uzrokuju kemikalije koje proizvode crijevne bakterije - što pojačava tezu da veza crijeva i mozga igra važnu ulogu u ranim promjenama pamćenja.
Mnogim ljudima s celijakijom savjetuje se da jedu više vlakana kako bi podržali probavu i upravljali simptomima, bilo putem prehrane ili propisanih dodataka prehrani s vlaknima. Sada novo istraživanje pokazuje da koristi tih vlakana mogu ovisiti o tome jesu li u crijevima prisutne prave bakterije koje ih razgrađuju.
Neredovito vrijeme spavanja u srednjim godinama može signalizirati povećani rizik od kardiovaskularnih bolesti, sugerira nova studija. Naime, velike promjene u vremenu odlaska u krevet mogu udvostručiti rizik od ozbiljnih srčanih događaja - posebno među onima koji spavaju manje od osam sati.
Rezultati nove studije pokazali su da odrasle osobe s većim ukupnim unosom šećera imaju veću vjerojatnost razvoja žučnih kamenaca, što dodaje nove dokaze da svakodnevna prehrana može igrati značajnu ulogu u zdravlju žučnog mjehura. Naime, svako povećanje ukupnog unosa šećera od 100 g/dan povezano je s 41% većim rizikom od žučnih kamenaca, čak i nakon prilagodbe s demografskim, kliničkim, načinom života i prehrambenim čimbenicima.
Prijevremeni porod glavni je uzrok neonatalnih bolesti i smrti, posebno među ženama s anamnezom prijevremenog poroda. No, znanstvenici u Japanu istraživali su može li uzimanje probiotika u ranoj trudnoći pomoći u smanjenju rizika od spontanog prijevremenog poroda. Istraživanje je pokazalo, da su žene koje su konzumirale probiotike koji sadrže Clostridium butyricum imale niže stope recidiva u usporedbi s nacionalnim prosjekom, što sugerira da probiotska terapija može ponuditi jednostavnu strategiju za sprječavanje prijevremenog poroda.
Čak i nakon što upala prođe, matične stanice debelog crijeva mogu zadržati skriveno molekularno pamćenje koje povećava vjerojatnost kasnijeg rasta tumora, nudeći novu mehanističku vezu između kronične upalne bolesti i rizika od raka, ukazuje nova studija.
Pacijenti koji imaju zatajenje srca s očuvanom ejekcijskom frakcijom (HFpEF) i visokim krvnim tlakom u plućima (plućna hipertenzija) doživjeli su značajna poboljšanja krvnog tlaka i zdravlja krvnih žila nakon uzimanja lijeka sotatercept, tvrdi nova studija.
Prema rezultatima nove studije, pacijenti s kroničnom potpunom blokadom koronarne arterije koji su primili nekirurški postupak za ponovno otvaranje arterije pokazali su statistički značajno smanjenje boli u prsima i poboljšanje kvalitete života u usporedbi s pacijentima koji su primili placebo postupak.
Kada pacijenti razviju suženje ili začepljenje žučnih kanala liječnici moraju utvrditi je li uzrok rak ili benigno stanje. Lokacija tih začepljenja otežava dijagnozu, a ta nesigurnost može odgoditi odluke o liječenju pacijenata u slučaju da imaju ovu rijetku vrstu raka. No, sada su američki znanstvenici sa UPMC Hillman Cancer Center i University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine razvili BiliSeq, molekularni test koji otkriva rak žučnih kanala s dvostruko većom osjetljivošću od standardnog testa, dajući liječnicima točniju sliku pacijentove dijagnoze.
Multipla skleroza je iscrpljujući neurološki poremećaj uzrokovan neispravnim imunološkim odgovorima koji ciljaju mozak i leđnu moždinu središnjeg živčanog sustava (SŽS). Neuspjeh imunološkog sustava da razlikuje svoje od tuđih entiteta dovodi do prekomjernih autoimunih odgovora protiv vlastitih proteina poput mijelina, koji tvori zaštitni omotač na neuronima.
