uvečaj veličinu pisma
Photo: Vivian Grisogono
But there are alternatives....
Weighed down by underinvestment and uncertainty, staff at Maple Lodge just want to get on with the job
It is a grey day in a wet weekbut one of Thames Water’s neglected plants is still coping. Wastewater is being pumped into the vast Maple Lodge sewage treatment centre in Rickmansworth, just off the M25, at a rate of about 3,000 litres a second, within capacity.
The site manager points out the first-line screens that catch everything that will not pass through a 5mm filter. A “sheep” – a bundle of wet wipes, sanitary pads, cotton buds, condoms and indigestible bits of sweetcorn – is rotating at one edge. Credit cards and false teeth have been known to end up here.
Continue reading...
Exclusive: Documents show Andrea Jenkyns asked how she could help firm after major gas find in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire’s Reform party mayor, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, has courted the head of an American oil and gas dynasty in the hope of bringing fracking to the county, the Guardian can reveal.
Egdon Resources, a British subsidiary of the US fracker Heyco Energy, announced a major gas discovery in Lincolnshire’s Gainsborough Trough last year. Jenkyns, who became the first mayor of Greater Lincolnshire in May, reached out personally to the company asking how she “could help with your recent gas find in my county”, according to records released by the mayoral authority in response to a freedom of information request.
Continue reading...
South-western France could hit 25C, while a powerful Nor’easter is forecast to bring blizzards to Boston
An early taste of spring is on the way for millions across northern and western Europe this week. Temperatures could climb close to a near record-breaking 20C (68F) in parts of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with south-western France approaching 25C on Wednesday.
The warmth is being driven by a highly amplified synoptic pattern, featuring a region of low pressure over the Atlantic and strong high pressure over central Europe. The setup will allow exceptionally mild air to spread across much of the continent, with temperatures in some places rising to 10-15C above the seasonal average.
Continue reading...
Wold Newton, East Yorkshire: On a dreary day in a nondescript field, I visit the site where a 4.56 billion-year-old bit of space rock came to Earth
On a low rise, beyond a screen of trees, behind a small holiday park in the Yorkshire Wolds, a brick obelisk stands incongruously at the edge of an otherwise nondescript field. It bears a plaque inscribed as follows: “Here, on this spot, Decr. 13th, 1795 / fell from the Atmosphere AN EXTRAORDINARY STONE / In breadth 28 inches / In length 36 inches…”
The words are carved in a variety of enthusiastic fonts, with the opening “Here” given particularly earnest flourish.The extraordinary, extraterrestrial stone in question is the Wold Cottage meteorite, the first from anywhere to be widely recognised as a rock from outer space. After a 4.56bn-year journey, it now rests in the Treasures Gallery of the Natural History Museum.
Continue reading...
The Belgian ceremony attracts beekeepers from the Netherlands, France and Germany keen to boost dark bee numbers and stop the spread of the hybrid honeybee
Every summer, 1,000 virgin queens descend on the Belgian town of Chimay. During the “wedding flight”, a male attaches to the female. His endophallus (penis equivalent) is torn off and he falls to the ground and dies. Mission accomplished.
Beekeepers come and pick up their fertilised queens in small colourful hives, driving them back home, sometimes more than 300km away. They will use the genetic material gathered in south Belgium to build new colonies in the Netherlands, France and Germany.
Continue reading...
Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential
In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.
Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.
Continue reading...
Rising temperatures are forcing some ski resorts to close, while leaving others at greater risk of extreme weather
Avalanches kill about 100 people in Europe each year, with vast masses of ice, snow and rock regularly crashing down on hikers and skiers who have been caught unawares.
The structure of the snow, angle of the slope and variation of the weather can dictate whether a gentle disturbance – like a gust of wind or the glide of a snowboard – can trigger a deadly shift in the mountain.
Continue reading...
In an edited extract from her latest book, Hazel Sheffield sets out a new blueprint for community stewardship
It was a Saturday in February 2020 when the flood came. It had been a wet winter, so wet it seemed that before the month was out, the brown trout of the River Taff might be washed clean out into Cardiff Bay before the fishing season had even begun. But this is Wales. People are used to a spot of rain. No one realised how bad it would get.
For two days, it hammered on the windows of the houses at the top of the South Wales Valleys, where people tucked in their children before a sleepless night. It poured into the rivers at the bottom. By the time the rain departed again, many people would be standing in water up to their knees.
Continue reading...
Rivers drained dry to create artificial snow, a forest cut down for the bobsleigh track – IOC’s claims to prioritise sustainability at Milano Cortina exposed
On the foothills of the mountains, by the banks of the river in Cortina, there was a forest. It was full of tall larch trees. Arborists said the oldest of them had been there for 150 years and dendrologists that it was unique because it was unusual to find a monocultural forest growing at such a low altitude in the southern Alps.
The locals knew mostly it was the place where the old wooden bobsleigh run was, where you went on your walks in summer or autumn, or when you wanted to play tennis on the small courts built near the bottom. They called it the Bosco di Ronco and it isn’t there any more.
Continue reading...
Animal rights activists disagree with authorities on how best to handle boom in primate population near Table Mountain
At the edge of Da Gama Park, where the Cape Town suburb meets the mountain, baboons jumped from the road to garden walls to roofs and back again. Children from South African navy families living in the area’s modest houses played in the street. Some were delighted; some wary; most were unfazed by the animals.
A few miles away, overlooking a soaring peak and sweeping bay, Nicola de Chaud showed photos of food strewn across her kitchen by a baboon. In another incident, a baboon threw one of her dogs across the veranda. In January, a male baboon lunged at her and refused to leave the house for 10 minutes.
Continue reading...
Iako pacijenti s dijabetesom tipa 2 u Hrvatskoj imaju na raspolaganju sve mogućnosti liječenja kao i u većini EU zemalja, u praksi se pokazuje da je nužno dijelu pacijenata kod kojih postoji potreba omogućiti propisivanje dokazano efikasnih GLP-1 RA lijekova u prvoj ili najkasnije u drugoj liniji liječenja, a ne kao što to trenutno definira Hrvatski zavod za zdravstveno osiguranje (HZZO) da ih mogu dobiti tek u trećoj liniji liječenja.
U organizaciji Beta Plus poliklinike, specijalizirane za humanu reprodukciju i medicinski potpomognutu oplodnju, održan je stručni simpozij pod nazivom "Medicinski pomognuta oplodnja (MPO) – važnost uloge primarnog ginekologa", koji je okupio ginekologe i stručnjake iz područja humane reprodukcije.
Nova studija otkrila je da su određene regije mozga aktivnije kod osoba s opsesivno-kompulzivnim poremećajem (OKP) tijekom kognitivno zahtjevnih zadataka. Smatra se, da bi ovi rezultati mogli pomoći u oblikovanju novih načina liječenja i procjene stanja.
Adolescenti koji koriste kanabis mogli bi se suočiti sa značajno većim rizikom od razvoja ozbiljnih psihijatrijskih poremećaja do rane odrasle dobi, tvrde rezultati nove studije. Naime, konzumacija kanabisa bila je povezana sa značajno većim rizikom od incidenata psihotičnih, bipolarnih, depresivnih i anksioznih poremećaja.
Znanstvenici s Örebro University identificirali su krvne markere koji mogu ukazivati na to tko je u riziku od razvoja ulceroznog kolitisa - kronične upalne bolesti crijeva - kasnije u životu. Ovi markeri mogu biti prisutni mnogo godina prije pojave prvih simptoma i znakova ulceroznog kolitisa.
Delirij je iznenadna pojava akutne konfuzije u kojoj su pogođeni dezorijentirani, imaju smanjenu pažnju i doživljavaju promijenjenu percepciju - često popraćenu halucinacijama ili poremećajima spavanja. U kardiologiji je to jedna od najčešćih, ali i jedna od najpodcijenjenijih komplikacija. Posebno su pogođeni stariji pacijenti koji su podvrgnuti operaciji srca ili intervencijskim zahvatima.
Dovoljno sna može biti važnije za zdravlje srca nego što mnogi ljudi misle. Nova multicentrična studija otkrila je da je nedovoljno spavanje povezano s većim rizikom od fibrilacije atrija (AF) među odraslima radne dobi.
Novi dokazi upućuju na to da mikrobni metaboliti ne samo da reguliraju endogenu sekreciju GLP-1, već mogu utjecati i na terapijski odgovor na agoniste GLP-1 receptora, što otvara mogućnost strategija liječenja vođenih mikrobiomom kod pretilosti i dijabetesa tipa 2.
Nedavna studija istražila je dijagnostičku vrijednost upalnih biomarkera u plazmi za Alzheimerovu bolest i ispitala odnose između ključnih biomarkera, kognitivnih performansi i APOE genotipova.
Japanski znanstvenici uspjeli su otkrti dvije crijevne bakterije koje zajedno doprinose kroničnom zatvoru (konstipacija). Naime, dvojac, Akkermansia muciniphila i Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, uništava omotač crijevne sluzi neophodan za održavanje podmazanosti debelog crijeva i hidratacije stolice. Njihova prekomjerna razgradnja ostavlja pacijente sa suhom, nepokretnom stolicom.
