Tag: SB001

A Brazilian congressional panel has recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with “crimes against humanity” over his alleged bungling of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A newly published study in the journal PLoS ONE suggests spending time on screens is unlikely to be directly harmful to young children. The US study attracted global attention, as screen time has been commonly blamed for disrupting the healthy habits of our youth.

Since March 2020, Melbourne has spent more time in lockdown than any other city in the world. It’s been a long and arduous journey for its five million people, as well as other parts of Victoria at certain times.

The New Zealand government has bet heavily on vaccination targets and certificates to move the country into the re-opening phase of its COVID-19 response.

On paper, privacy rights for citizens of countries throughout Africa are well protected. Privacy rights are written into constitutions, international human rights conventions and domestic law.

Through summer and early autumn 2021, Europe experienced a long period of dry conditions and low wind speeds. The beautifully bright and still weather may have been a welcome reason to hold off reaching for our winter coats, but the lack of wind can be a serious issue when we ...

Protein-enriched products are ubiquitous, and these days it seems protein can be infused into anything – even water. But the problem, as Kristi Wempen, a nutritionist at Mayo Clinic, points out, is that “contrary to all the hype that everyone needs more protein, most Americans get twice as much as ...

Facebook’s smart glasses ambitions are in the news again. The company has launched a worldwide project dubbed Ego4D to research new uses for smart glasses.

Microplastics are found in the most remote places on land and in the ocean as well as in our food. Now several studies around the world have confirmed they are also present in the air we breathe.

The treatment contains antibodies, which are usually produced naturally in response to a COVID infection or vaccination. They work by recognising specific parts of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID – and either attack these directly or bind to them to stop the virus from working and flag it ...

The pandemic has been a bruising experience for the global economy. In response, many countries have kept interest rates low, to keep money moving at a time of extreme uncertainty. In the UK, rates have been at an all time low of 0.1% since March 2020. But this may be ...

The UK government has published its Heat and Buildings Strategy, a plan to replace fossil-fuelled heating like gas boilers with low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps.

Neither Scotland nor the UK have the strongest record when it comes to transitioning fairly away from fossil fuels. The country’s decarbonisation has so far largely been a product of decommissioning coal-fired power stations after the acceleration of pit closures under Conservative governments during the 1980s and 1990s.

Data centres can range in size from small cabinets through to vast “hyperscale” warehouses the size of stadiums. Inside, are computers called servers which support the software, apps and websites we use every day.

The San Pedro River winds from rainforests in Guatemala through the Yucatan Peninsula in eastern Mexico. There, this peaceful river widens into a series of slow-flowing lakes. Along a remote 50-mile (80-kilometer) stretch, thousands of red mangroves – trees commonly found along tropical coastlines – line the river’s banks and ...

Economics studies the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. And so, like other social sciences, economics is fundamentally interested in human behavior.

New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has announced that from November 1, quarantine will no longer be required for international arrivals who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Coalition leaders have taken aim at the social media giants, claiming they should take greater responsibility for false and damaging content on their sites, including by identifying offenders.

In 1997 Kyoto Protocol talks, all developed states needed to agree on targets, timeframes and what could be included or excluded from calculations. This meant Australia was able to hold the agreement to ransom by threatening to withhold support, unless demands were met.

Information about evolutionary events hundreds of millions of years ago is mainly gleaned from fossils. Familiar fossils are shells, exoskeletons and bones that organisms make while alive.

Asteroids are remnants of the early Solar System, with the potential to reveal secrets of our planet’s origins. But they could also bring an end to life on Earth.

A shortage of lorry drivers in the UK has been blamed for queues at petrol stations and warnings of supermarket shortages. As a result, some companies have reportedly been trying to attract drivers with signing up bonuses and substantial pay rises.

More than 200 million U.S. residents have gotten at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine with the expectation that the vaccines slow virus transmission and save lives.

Australia’s Murdoch-owned tabloid newspapers – including The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and Courier Mail – have embarked on a bold new climate change campaign.

France’s recent recall of its ambassador to the United States was an exceptional move in the long history of France-U.S. relations, which began with the 1778 treaties that created a military and commercial alliance between the two countries.

Evergrande is owner of the football (soccer) team Guangzhou Evergrande FC, by far the most successful club in China. As such, the company and Chinese football have become intertwined – both financially and politically – and will rise and fall together.

As Prime Minister Scott Morrison tries to land a Coalition climate policy deal ahead of the international COP26 summit in Glasgow, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce on Sunday ruled out supporting more ambitious 2030 targets.

Eight in ten of Australia’s leading economists back action to cut Australia’s carbon emissions to net-zero.

After the UK formally left the EU at the end of 2020, it experienced a dramatic fall in trade. The media was full of stories about lengthy hold-ups at customs and empty shelves in supermarkets.

As lockdown eases today in New South Wales, and will do so in Victoria later this month, many people will begin readjusting to “normal” life.

Some women are holding off on being vaccinated against COVID-19 because of concerns the jab could affect their fertility, at times taking to social media to voice their concerns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live, go to school or work, and socialise. It has also increased mental health concerns, with a rise in levels of distress, anxiety and depression.

The golden age of discovery of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets) began in 1995. Since the first discoveries, more than 4,500 worlds have been found, most of them orbiting ordinary stars like our Sun.

The COP26 climate negotiations are just weeks away, and the tide is now turning against international finance of coal-fired power generation. The implications for Australia cannot be ignored.

It is now common to refer to the current biodiversity crisis as the sixth mass extinction. But is this true? Are we in the middle of an event on the same scale as the five ancient mass extinctions Earth has experienced?

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is tasked with providing as full an account as possible of the attempted insurrection. But there is a problem: Not everyone is cooperating.

Streaming platforms like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime have undoubtedly reshaped the way we consume media, primarily by massively increasing the film, music and TV available to viewers.

Ivermectin is an over 30-year-old wonder drug that treats life- and sight-threatening parasitic infections. Its lasting influence on global health has been so profound that two of the key researchers in its discovery and development won the Nobel Prize in 2015.

COVID-19 exposed the plastics recycling sector’s vulnerability to oil-price changes. Economic shutdown driven by the pandemic led to reduced global oil demand, which in turn caused oil prices to plunge.

Kuznets developed GDP as a means of measuring the impact of the great depression. It enabled governments to track any increase or decrease in their nation’s wealth as represented by the value of goods and services produced, and became increasingly important as governments estimated the cost of waging the second ...

Last Monday, Sydney emerged from a lockdown of more than 100 days after reaching the milestone of having 70% of the over-16 population fully vaccinated.

Manufacturers can’t always guarantee volumes at the moment. Some are out of parts, with critical suppliers pausing operations due to lockdowns.

Building defects in apartments have been in the news a lot in NSW since the evacuation of the Opal Tower in late 2018. The NSW parliament is now holding its second inquiry into the issue.

The COP26 climate negotiations are just weeks away, and the tide is now turning against international finance of coal-fired power generation. The implications for Australia cannot be ignored.

Each of its carbon-sucking units is the size of a shipping container, yet the world’s largest direct air capture machine – the Orca plant in Iceland – only captures and stores about 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year. That’s about three seconds’ worth of global emissions.

Shatner will become the oldest person to go to space, breaking the record set only recently by 82-year-old Wally Funk, who travelled on the New Shepard’s first crewed spaceflight in July. Funk was one of the Mercury 13 women who qualified for spaceflight in the 1960s but never flew.

Many Newcastle United fans cheered the announcement on October 7 that their club had finally been sold for £305 million.

The High Court has unanimously rejected claims by mining magnate Clive Palmer and his company Mineralogy that legislation passed by the Western Australian parliament intended to prevent him from claiming billions in damages was unconstitutional.

In early 2020, we detected an unusual radio signal coming from somewhere near the centre of our galaxy. The signal blinked on and off, growing 100 times brighter and dimmer over time.

European and Asian gas prices are at an all-time high, the oil price is at a three-year high, and the price of coal is soaring on the back of energy shortages across China, India and Germany.