SUSTAINABILITY
Canada has unveiled an ambitious emissions reduction target of 45-50% below 2005 levels by 2035, reinforcing its commitment to achieving net-zero by 2050. This milestone builds on the 2030 target and sets a clear direction for the next decade of climate action. DETAIL
This year will be the world's warmest since records began, with extraordinarily high temperatures expected to persist into at least the first few months of 2025, European Union scientists said on Monday. DETAIL
It is well-known that the snow cover on the 'roof of Europe' is decreasing, but the study, conducted by scientists at the Eurac research centre in Italy, is one of the few to take a long and comprehensive look at the situation. It shows an average decrease of 34% in snow cover across the Alps between 1920 and 2020, especially on the southwestern slopes. DETAIL
Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced plans to launch a request for proposals (RFPs) for nuclear energy developers in the U.S. to provide new nuclear capacity to supply the massive increase in energy to power the growth in AI, while supporting its sustainability goals. DETAIL
The ocean may have removed much less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than expected in 2023, mainly due to high ocean temperatures. If climate change continues to rapidly weaken the planet’s ocean and land carbon sinks, it will be even more difficult to avoid dangerous levels of warming. DETAIL
On Tuesday, president-elect Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post that any "person or company" investing $1 billion or more in the US would "receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental [sic] approvals." DETAIL
The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the regulator charged with developing and enforcing new regulations requiring large companies to disclose their value chain emissions and report on climate-related financial risks, announced that it will ease emissions reporting requirements and not pursue enforcement action in the first year of reporting, in order to give companies more time to prepare to comply with the new rules. DETAIL
The average global surface temperature during 2025 will be between 1.29°C and 1.53°C – and most likely 1.41°C – above the pre-industrial average, according to a forecast by the Met Office, the UK’s national weather and climate service. That is slightly cooler than 2024, which is set to be the first calendar year to exceed 1.5°C. DETAIL
According to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, tundra in the Arctic is becoming a net source of carbon dioxide, rather than the climate-beneficial carbon sink it has been for millennia. DETAIL
New research by scientists at University of California, Davis (UC Davis), has found that giving grazing cattle a seaweed supplement reduces their methane emissions by nearly 40 percent without having an effect on their health or weight. DETAIL
In a new study led by researchers at Wuhan University, scientists have developed a filter, made with cotton and squid bone, that can be used to adsorb certain microplastics in aquatic environments. Further, they determined the filter was about 98% to 99.9% effective in filtering microplastics. DETAIL
HEALTH
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection remains an ongoing problem and a key public health interest. Experts are interested in finding the best strategies for HIV prevention, including the best options for pre-exposure prophylaxis. One study revealed that injection of the medication lenacapavir every six months could greatly reduce the risk for HIV infection among at-risk individuals. DETAIL
Delivering babies early, when possible, is currently the only way to deal with the common pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia. But the condition has now been successfully treated in mice by delivering mRNA molecules to the placenta to boost the growth of new blood vessels. The next step is to test this mRNA therapy in larger animals, such as guinea pigs and non-human primates, says Kelsey Swingle at the University of Pennsylvania. “That’s something we’ve talked about starting in the really near term.” DETAIL
DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
A vast cloud of vapour expelled from boiled asteroids may have lingered in the solar system for millions of years before raining down on Earth, according to a new idea for how our planet got its water. The origin of Earth’s water has long puzzled scientists. One idea is that Earth’s water came from asteroids that smashed into the planet over millions of years, but this requires a complex and specific dance of planets and asteroids for there to have been enough impacts. Quentin Kral at the Paris Observatory in France says his team’s theory is simpler: icy asteroids that existed early in the first few million years of the solar system were heated as the sun grew hotter, producing a cloud of water vapour, which was then pulled towards Earth by gravity. DETAIL
Hyundai Motor and Kia Robotics have introduced the X-ble Shoulder, a wearable robot designed to support overhead tasks and reduce musculoskeletal strain. No batteries required! The device alleviates shoulder load by 60% and deltoid muscle activity by 30%, improving worker comfort and safety in a wide range of industries, including construction, shipbuilding, aviation, agriculture and automotive manufacturing. DETAIL
The sun may produce extremely powerful bursts of radiation more frequently than we thought. Such “superflares” seem to happen as often as once a century, according to a survey of sun-like stars and might be accompanied by particle storms that could have devastating consequences for electronics on Earth. As the last big solar storm to hit Earth was 165 years ago, we might be in line for another soon, but it is uncertain how similar the sun is to these other stars. DETAIL
Microsoft continues to add new features to the Phone Link application developed for iPhone Software. The company has begun testing a feature that enables file sharing between iPhone and Windows PCs. This innovation is only available to Windows Insider participants. DETAIL
Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu reported that Turkey's internet usage reached 86.5 percent according to the Digital 2024 October Global Statistics Report. Minister Uraloğlu stated that 65.7 percent of the population uses social media and said, "In our country, users spend 2 hours and 37 minutes on social media. There are 303 million 97 thousand active accounts from Turkey on social media platforms." DETAIL
China's industry ministry will set up an artificial intelligence standardisation technical committee focusing on developing industry standards in areas such as large language models and AI risk assessment, it said on Friday. DETAIL
ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION
A Finland-based startup has announced the development of the simplest version of commercial nuclear reactors. Designed to produce only heat, these innovative reactors aim to provide an environmentally friendly and cost-competitive solution. The company says these reactors could be built underground to heat cities. DETAIL
Panasonic has launched a solar-powered hydrogen fuel cell project at its factory in Cardiff, Wales, with the microwave assembly now operating on renewable energy. DETAIL
Stanford University have discovered that EV batteries could last up to 40% longer than previously assumed. The reason: driving and charging habits in the real world are said to put less strain on batteries than laboratory tests. DETAIL
Ascend Elements will begin production of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) recovered from used lithium-ion batteries in 2025. The company plans to produce up to 3,000 tonnes of Li2CO3 per year. DETAIL
Nvidia has reportedly hired 200 additional employees in China to work on researching and developing self-driving cars, which means it will have grown its global headcount by 25% in 2024 to about 4,000 employees, Bloomberg reports. DETAIL
CYBERSECURITY
A group known as Secret Blizzard, which has ties to Russia's Federal Security Service, is targeting Ukraine's military with the goal of swiping PDFs, emails, documents, and other data. DETAIL
Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets. DETAIL
HUMANITY / CURIOSITY
Elon Musk, whose wealth has been turbocharged since President-elect Donald Trump’s win last month, became the first person to reach $400 billion in net worth, the latest milestone for the world’s richest individual. DETAIL