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Announcement draws anger from Labour MP over refusal to remove tonnes of rubbish dumped near school in Wigan
The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.
But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.
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Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success story
On a quiet Friday evening, an otter and a fox trot through Lincoln city centre. The pair scurry past charity shops and through deserted streets, the encounter lit by the security lamps of shuttered takeaways. Each animal inspects the nooks and crannies of the high street before disappearing into the night, ending the unlikely scene captured by CCTV last month.
Unlike the fox, the otter has been a rare visitor in towns and cities across the UK. But after decades of intense conservation work, that is changing. In the past year alone, the aquatic mammal has been spotted on a river-boat dock in London’s Canary Wharf, dragging an enormous fish along a riverbank in Stratford-upon-Avon, and plundering garden ponds near York. One otter was even filmed causing chaos in a Shetland family’s kitchen in March.
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Scientists say bears in southern Greenland differ genetically to those in the north, suggesting they could adjust
Changes in polar bear DNA that could help the animals adapt to warmer climates have been detected by researchers, in a study thought to be the first time a statistically significant link has been found between rising temperatures and changing DNA in a wild mammal species.
Climate breakdown is threatening the survival of polar bears. Two-thirds of them are expected to have disappeared by 2050 as their icy habitat melts and the weather becomes hotter.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Low Burnhall wood, Durham: The smell of decay, the screech of jays – nearly 100,000 trees planted in 2008 have really come of age
“I remember when these were all open fields,” said with a sigh, is a lament usually associated with open countryside disappearing under creeping urban sprawl. Not here at Low Burnhall Wood, two miles south of Durham city centre, where former farmland in the valley of the River Wear is now filled with thriving young native trees.
For 30 years I saw arable crops sown and harvested here, as I drove past on my way to work. Then, in 2008, no more cereals or oilseed rape: the Woodland Trust purchased the land and began planting 94,500 mixed, deciduous trees.
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Northern resident killer whales appear to use dolphins as ‘scouts’, in a surprising cooperative hunting strategy
Orcas and dolphins have been spotted for the first time working as a team to hunt salmon off the coast of British Columbia, according to a new study which suggests a cooperative relationship between the two predators.
The research, published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, shows interactions between northern resident orcas (also known as killer whales) and Pacific white-sided dolphins are not just chance encounters while foraging.
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An official report lays out different scenarios for the cost of transitioning away from fossil fuels to net zero by 2050
Britain’s official energy system operator has attempted to work out what achieving net zero carbon emissions will cost, with its figures showing surging spending in the coming years.
The scale and speed of the shift to a low-carbon economy, and how to fund it, are hotly debated by political parties.
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In this week’s newsletter: The government’s bid to speed up nuclear construction could usher in sweeping deregulation, with experts warning of profound consequences for nature
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When UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced last week that he was “implementing the Fingleton review”, you can forgive the pulse of most Britons for failing to quicken.
But behind the uninspiring statement lies potentially the biggest deregulation for decades, posing peril for endangered species, if wildlife experts are to be believed, and a likely huge row with the EU.
2025 ‘virtually certain’ to be second- or third-hottest year on record, EU data shows
Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity, report finds
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Study on skull of Altamura Man could be blow to adaptation theories about Neanderthals and their extinction
One sign of a really cold day is the sharp sting of freezing air in your nose. It was believed that the noses of Neanderthals were better adapted to breathing the cold air of the Ice Age and that when the climate became warmer they were outcompeted by modern humans. This is now being questioned.
The opening in the Neanderthal skull is bigger than ours, with a larger nasal cavity behind it. This was thought to have bony convolutions to warm and moisten the incoming air, similar to those seen on some arctic mammals. These delicate structures would only survive in an exceptionally well-preserved skull though, so it was never clear whether they were actually present.
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A fin whale washed ashore in Anchorage and was left there for months. Then a self-described ‘wacko’ museum director made a plan
When a whale dies, its body descends to the bottom of the deep sea in a transformative phenomenon called a whale fall. A whale’s death jump-starts an explosion of life, enough to feed and sustain a deep-ocean ecosystem for decades.
There are a lot of ways whales can die. Migrating whales lose their way and, unable to find their way back from unfamiliar waters, are stranded. They can starve when prey disappears or fall to predators such as orcas. They become bycatch, tangled in fishing lines and nets. Mass whale deaths have been linked to marine heatwaves and the toxic algae blooms that follow.
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Prema nedavno objavljenom istraživanju, dugoročni rizik od srčanih bolesti kod žena s dijagnozom fibroida maternice (mioma maternice) bio je više od 80% veći nego kod žena bez fibroida.
Preliminarna studija osoba s dijabetesom sugerira da bi upotreba GLP-1 lijekova koji snižavaju glukozu mogla biti povezana s manjim rizikom od razvoja epilepsije. Agonisti receptora glukagonu sličnog peptida-1, ili GLP-1 lijekovi, koriste se za liječenje dijabetesa i smanjenje povišene tjelesne težine. GLP-1 lijekovi koji su bili uključeni u studiju bili su dulaglutid, liraglutid i semaglutid.
Prirodne stanice ubojice (NK) su tjelohranitelji našeg imunološkog sustava. Kao prva linija obrane, one uništavaju patogene koji invadiraju, strana tijela i zaražene stanice u ranim fazama, čime sprječavaju njihovo širenje. NK stanice mogu cirkulirati u krvotoku (krvožilnom sustavu) ili se nalaziti u tkivu i organima. Premalo NK stanica može dovesti do disfunkcije imunološkog sustava i povećati osjetljivost na bolesti.
U novom ispitivanju, inhibitor Bruton tirozin kinaze (BTK) pirtobrutinib povećao je stopu preživljavanja bez progresije bolesti i bio je dobro podnošljiv s povoljnijim sigurnosnim profilom u usporedbi s bendamustinom plus rituksimabom (BR) kod pacijenata s prethodno neliječenom kroničnom limfocitnom leukemijom (CLL) i malim limfocitnim limfomom (SLL).
U novoj predkliničkoj studiji, američki znanstvenici razvili su terapiju antitijelima pod nazivom 77A koja je pokazala sposobnost prevladavanja otpornosti na liječenje raka krvi, poput multiplog mijeloma i limfoma, kao i solidnih tumora.
Rezultati uobičajenih krvnih testova mogu ponuditi rani trag gubitka koštane mase, što sugerira da bi razine alkalne fosfataze (ALP) mogle pomoći u identificiranju ljudi koji bi mogli imati koristi od ranije procjene osteoporoze prije nego što dođe do prijeloma.
Novo kliničko ispitivanje sugerira da uparivanje bispecifičnih antitijela i konjugata antitijela i lijekova s terapijom CAR T-stanicama može značajno povećati jednogodišnje preživljavanje bez progresije bolesti kod osoba s agresivnim limfomom.
Prema rezultatima nove studije, nedovoljna količina sna je značajno negativno povezana s očekivanim životnim vijekom, tako da je manja insuficijencija sna bila povezana s duljim očekivanim životnim vijekom.
Imunoterapija za sepsu učinkovita je kada liječnici precizno prilagode liječenje stanju imunološkog sustava pacijenta. Dok su ranija istraživanja pokazala malu korist od imunoterapije kod sepse, nova studija pokazuje da ciljani pristup imunoterapiji poboljšava kliničke ishode.
Primanje imunoterapije protiv raka ranije tijekom dana može pomoći osobama s rakom da žive dulje, tvrdi nova studija. Naime, unutarnji sat, ili cirkadijalni ritam, utječe na to kada su aktivni različiti fiziološki procesi (uključujući imunološke reakcije) u tijelu. To bi moglo objasniti zašto se čini da su različiti lijekovi učinkovitiji kada se uzimaju u određeno doba dana.
