The European Parliament has reached a provisional agreement with the EU Council regarding charging and hydrogen refueling stations across Europe.

The rule states that by 2026, there will be charging stations at every 60 kilometers along the TEN-T network.

For those who don't know, the TEN-T is the EU's ambitious transport network project that includes highways, roads, ports and trains, connecting all parts of the Old Continent.

The Netherlands’ hyper-efficient food system is both a triumph and a cautionary tale

Going back nearly 80 years, anxieties over food security have driven the tiny Netherlands to become a global leader in agriculture despite having just half the land area of South Carolina.

After a horrific famine during World War II killed more than 20,000 Dutch, the government heavily invested in its agricultural sector through subsidies, rural infrastructure, and industrialization.

Two decades ago, it pledged to grow twice as much food with half as many resources, a goal it has already far exceeded. Today, the Netherlands produces 6 percent of Europe’s food with only 1 percent of the continent’s farmland.

The math behind making a star-encompassing megastructure

In 1960, visionary physicist Freeman Dyson proposed that an advanced alien civilization would someday quit fooling around with kindergarten-level stuff like wind turbines and nuclear reactors and finally go big, completely enclosing their home star to capture as much solar energy as they possibly could.

They would then go on to use that enormous amount of energy to mine bitcoin, make funny videos on social media, delve into the deepest mysteries of the Universe, and enjoy the bounties of their energy-rich civilization.

The US is pouring more money into electric vehicle infrastructure and rebates, but safety and affordability could be behind the gender gap between men and women owners.

Clean energy and technology can be exploited to avoid the growing climate disaster, the report says.

But at a meeting in Switzerland to agree their findings, climate scientists warned a key global temperature goal will likely be missed.

Their report lays out how rapid cuts to fossil fuels can avert the worst effects of climate change.

In response to the findings, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres says that all countries should bring forward their net zero plans by a decade. These targets are supposed to rapidly cut the greenhouse gas emissions that warm our planet's atmosphere.

"There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the report states.

Landmark report urges overhaul of wasteful water practices around world on eve of crucial UN summit

The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit.

Governments must urgently stop subsidising the extraction and overuse of water through misdirected agricultural subsidies, and industries from mining to manufacturing must be made to overhaul their wasteful practices, according to a landmark report on the economics of water.

The continued global rise in sales of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

The 330 million sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

Climate campaigners are increasingly concerned about the impact of SUVs. The vehicles are larger and heavier than regular cars and use on average 20% more fuel. The increased number of SUVs in 2022 were responsible for a third of the increase in global oil demand.

Purchases of SUVs have soared in recent years, rising from 20% of new cars in 2012 to 46% of all cars last year, the IEA reports. The rise continued in 2022, includes significant growth in the US, India and Europe, despite the overall number of cars sold falling slightly.

The world has lurched a step closer to the prospect of nuclear war, say researchers, after Russia declared last month that it would suspend its participation in its last major nuclear-arms treaty with the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement will formally end inspections under an agreement known as the New START treaty (Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms).

The inspection programme had allowed scientists on both sides to verify that the other was complying with the agreement. The move comes amid soaring tensions between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine.

New START limits Russia and the United States to 1,550 strategic warheads each, but has been facing challenges for years. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a pause in weapons inspections, and they have not restarted since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

US US government officials said in January that Russia was in violation of the treaty because it would not allow inspections to resume. However, Russia’s official suspension of the inspections is another blow to international efforts to control nuclear weapons, say experts, who worry that the world’s largest nuclear powers will not be subject to any arms-control obligations once New START expires in three years — or even sooner.

A new study from Harvard Medical School researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital suggests that men who regularly lift heavy objects at work have higher sperm counts than men whose work is less physically demanding.

The study, published in Human Reproduction, is part of the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) cohort, a clinical study that aims to explore how environmental chemicals and lifestyle choices affect reproductive health.

BioMonde supplies greenbottle larvae for treatment of non-squeamish patients across Europe

Hundreds of UK health service hospitals as well as clinics in Germany are using maggots to clean chronic wounds such as diabetic leg ulcers and speed up the healing process – reviving a centuries-old tradition practised by Maya tribes in Central America and Indigenous Australians.

During the first world war, the US doctor William Baer realised wounds with maggots in them healed much faster than those without. He started growing larvae on a hospital windowsill to treat patients with osteomyelitis, a bone inflammation.

By the end of the 1930s, 300 hospitals in the US and Canada were using maggots, but their use declined with the arrival of penicillin and other antibiotics, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s amid growing antibiotic resistance.

More than 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is being removed from Earth’s atmosphere each year, according to an analysis of global efforts to capture and store the greenhouse gas.

But this will not be enough to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, even with pledges from governments worldwide to increase carbon dioxide removal (CDR) rates and invest in new technologies.

The report, called The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, provides the first global estimates of the total amount of carbon that is being sucked out of the air each year, and predicts how much this will have to increase under various emissions scenarios. It was published on 19 January

Using a technique called “DNA origami,” researchers created traps that encase large viruses—such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza A, and Zika—in hopes of preventing them from infecting cells.

A study published today (18 January) in Cell Reports Physical Science details how researchers used DNA origami to engineer strands of genetic material into Lego-like structures that form a cage around large pathogens.

While the study only looked at how effectively the structures bound to viruses in vitro, the traps could one day help clear viruses from the body.

By engineering structures out of DNA, scientists could potentially prevent larger viruses, like coronaviruses and influenza viruses, from interacting with cells

Using a technique called “DNA origami,” researchers created traps that encase large viruses—such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza A, and Zika—in hopes of preventing them from infecting cells.

A study published today (18 January) in Cell Reports Physical Science details how researchers used DNA origami to engineer strands of genetic material into Lego-like structures that form a cage around large pathogens.

While the study only looked at how effectively the structures bound to viruses in vitro, the traps could one day help clear viruses from the body.

Hugely technically challenging and costly goals have been touted, not least the aim of people living and working on other worlds, possibly within ten years - but in a divided world where international good will is scarce, are they realistic?

An analysis of more than 1,500 field observations has identified a collection of agricultural practices that can improve the use of nitrogen fertilizers — boosting crop yields while reducing environmental pollution.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, touted its 3 nanometer process as the world's most advanced semiconductor technology on Thursday at a ceremony announcing the start of mass production of chips using the highly anticipated technology.

The 3nm process yield rate is comparable to that of the 5nm technology and demand for 3nm chips is very strong, said TSMC Chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) during the ceremony held at TSMC's Fab 18 in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan.

Liu said TSMC's 3nm technology would feature an estimated 60 percent gain in density of logic transistors and reduce power consumption by 30 percent to 35 percent at the same rate compared with 5nm technology.

Higher logic density means smaller transistors that operate faster and require less power to operate can be produced.

Around three billion litres of water are lost through leaks across hundreds of thousands of miles of water pipe in England and Wales daily, says water industry economic regulator Ofwat

Scientists have now developed miniature robots to patrol the pipe network, check for faults and prevent leaks.

They say maintaining the network will be "impossible" without robotics.

Unroll this solar carpet onto a roof—or any other surface that sees sunlight.

Françoise Gaill, a French marine biologist and vice president of the Ocean & Climate Platform, who is also a scientific adviser at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), spoke to FRANCE 24.

FRANCE 24: What is a dead zone?

Françoise Gaill: Dead zones are hypoxic areas in the ocean, where the concentration of oxygen is below the norm. This can mean a decrease of up to 20 percent, which is already quite significant, but can reach up to a 50 percent drop in oxygen levels.

The lack of oxygen occurs in the ocean’s surface areas, between 50 and 400 metres deep. The shallowest waters are generally less affected since they have more contact with the air and therefore benefit from oxygenation, which is less available in deep water.

Dead zones are mostly found off the coast of the Americas, from California to Chile. West Africa is also affected, as is the western part of Indonesia in the Indian Ocean.

Although they mostly hug coastlines, we are starting to see some dead zones stretch from the Americas into the middle of the Pacific, far from the shore.

An ongoing decrease in oxygen levels underwater is an important component of the loss of marine life. More than 400 "dead zones" – where aquatic life can no longer survive – existed in the world’s oceans in 2007, according to a study led by a scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, compared to 150 in 2003.

Deprived of essential oxygen, these marine areas span 245,000 square kilometres and threaten vertebrate animals, with more than a third of marine mammals affected.

The phenomenon has been ongoing since the 1980s and is proliferating, while research on the subject lags behind.

The day when most new drugs will be developed and tested directly using human tissues is right around the corner

Most people know what microelectronics are: those small but mighty components powering our phones, TVs, and other electronic devices.

Microfluidics is a related miniaturization technology but applied to fluids instead of electricity. Often hidden from view, microfluidics underlies a variety of devices that are essential to our lives, from home pregnancy tests to inkjet printers to glucometers for the monitoring of diabetes.

In recent years a class of microfluidic devices, called organs-on-chips, have even been used to mimic the natural environments of organs, opening the door to experiments that would otherwise not be feasible

Almost a million stillbirths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to the first global study.

The research estimated that almost half of stillbirths could be linked to exposure to pollution particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), mostly produced from the burning of fossil fuels.

The study covered 137 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where 98% of stillbirths occur. Dirty air was already known to increase the risk of stillbirth but the research is the first to assess the number of foetal deaths. The work was based on data from more than 45,000 stillbirths and live births.

Stillbirths were described as a “neglected tragedy” in a 2020 report published by Unicef. The heavy impact of stillbirths on mothers and their families would mean that action to prevent them would boost women’s health and equality, the scientists behind the new work said.

The epidemiological study did not examine how small particle pollution could cause stillbirths. But it followed the revelation in October that toxic air pollution particles were found in the lungs and brains of foetuses. Air pollution particles were first detected in placentas in 2018 and by then dirty air was known to strongly correlate with increased miscarriages, premature births, low birth weights and disturbed brain development.

The warming during the summer months in Europe has been much faster than the global average, shows a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.

As a consequence of human emissions of greenhouse gases, the climate across the continent has also become drier, particularly in southern Europe, leading to worse heat waves and an increased risk of fires.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

Indeed, but unfortunately it's the original title