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UK issues rare red heat alert as 68,000 households lose electricity in northern France and Italy puts warnings in place for 16 cities
Grahame Madge, a Met Office spokesperson, said the agency is forecasting 39C as a headline maximum temperature on Thursday in the UK, most likely for somewhere in London or the south-east.
“It is possible we could see temperatures higher than the 39C if the final values are at the upper end of our narrow range,” he said, according to the Press Association.
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Analysis shows cars in Europe have grown longer, taller and wider every year since 2000
Cars have grown 1.2cm longer, 0.5cm taller and 0.5cm wider each year on average since 2000, analysis of new vehicles sold in Europe has found, in what green groups call “relentless carspreading”.
The increase in size, which leaves people more likely to be killed in a crash and increases emissions that hurt lungs and heat the planet, has progressed at a roughly steady rate for two and half decades even as family sizes have fallen, the campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) found.
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Wildlife photographer Mohammed Almuntasir had no idea what he had found until scientists started to get in touch
When wildlife photographer Mohammed Almuntasir uploaded 18 seconds of footage to YouTube, he thought little more about the small, pale cat seen digging a hollow in the sand in the remote dunes of south-west Libya.
The video, however, posted in 2017, turned out to be the first material evidence that the sand cat (Felis margarita), the world’s only felid adapted to true desert conditions, existed in the country.
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Matriarchal groups in east and west exhibit distinct click patterns, used to form social structures
From “Howdy” to “G’day”, English – like other languages – is rich in dialects. Now researchers have found sperm whales on different sides of the Mediterranean show similar variations in their vocalisations.
Sperm whales communicate vocally using sequences of short clicks called codas. However, the rhythmic pattern of these clicks, known as the dialect, can differ between different matriarchal groups.
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UK regulator has increased its scrutiny of fashion retailers over potentially misleading environmental statements
Ads for Calvin Klein, Adidas and Uniqlo promoting “recycled” clothing and shoes have been banned by the UK watchdog after the advertisers were unable to prove their green claims.
Each of the fashion companies ran paid-for Google ads, with Adidas promoting “recycled running shoes”, Calvin Klein “recycled” tops for women, and Uniqlo advertised fleece coats and jackets made from “recycled materials”.
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Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses
Weakening the UK’s net zero policy would disrupt business and damage the economy, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.
Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said: “The U-turns are really damaging to inward investor confidence. If we really want to grow the economy, then investing and getting good at building stuff is essential.”
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Photographer Shane Hynan explores the tension between the central role peat bogs play in Irish life and their wider environmental impact
“You can read Ireland’s history in the boglands. They hold millennia in their layers,” says photographer Shane Hynan of his project, Beofhód (meaningBeneath in English).
The boglands, known as portachs in Irish, cover roughly 1.2m to 1.5m hectares or about 14% to 17% of the country’s total land area. The raised bogs of the Irish Midlands are made of peat that forms at a rate of 1mm a year (0.04in) in low-lying, poorly drained basins or former lakes. As the historical geographer Kevin Whelan observes in the Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, “the bog has been etched as deeply into the human as into the physical record in Ireland – to an extent unrivalled elsewhere.”
Eddie and Con footing turf for domestic use, Knockirr Bog, County Kildare, 2022.
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Researchers assessed likelihood gas was produced during creation of Alps, Pyrenees and Baetic mountains
Hydrogen gas is anticipated to play a central role in phasing out fossil fuels, particularly in industries that are proving more challenging to decarbonise, such as chemical production, shipping and steelmaking. But producing hydrogen synthetically is energy intensive and costly. In order for the hydrogen economy to take off, we need to find reliable natural sources of this gas. Could it be hidden in the mountains?
Researchers used plate tectonic simulations to investigate the Pyrenees, Alps and Baetic mountain ranges to assess if their mountain-building processes were likely to have resulted in hydrogen being produced and stored. Their findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, showed that the Alps and Pyrenees could be strong natural hydrogen exploration sites.
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As hot weather becomes more common, companies and homeowners are coming up with innovative ways to keep properties cool
When graphic designer Marc Alabaster had a new set of glass doors installed at his West Sussex home eight years ago, he soon realised how they magnified the heat of the afternoon sun.
“The kitchen was 40-plus degrees,” he said. Then he went on holiday to Spain and saw an apartment building wrapped in louvre-like rows of angled fins or blades that shaded the external walls against the sun.
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The cost of the traditional takeaway has doubled since 2019, and more outlets are trying to tempt customers with cheaper options such as coley, pollack and hake
In late April, visitors to Harbour Lights in Falmouth, Cornwall, may have raised an eyebrow. The fish and chip shop was in the midst of a “cod-free week”, its owners having removed cod from its menu entirely.
It was the second time owner Pete Fraser had undertaken the experiment, 15 years after the first. He also removed cod from his shops in Penzance and Helston, replacing it with coley, pollack, hake and hoki. The result was very different. “Some of the feedback we had, which certainly wasn’t what we got when we ran it years ago, is ‘Can you repeat this?’ Before, it was like, ‘Have you guys lost your head’?”
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