US companies ship more than 1m tons of hazardous waste to other countries each year, raising questions over possible impacts on health and the environment, an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab has found. Exports of toxic waste, most of which is shipped to Mexico and Canada, have climbed 17% since 2018, US…
An energy crisis and perma-drizzle have conspired to keep the nation’s laundry damp, not least by making it such a turn-off to turn on the heating. No wonder heated clothes airers are having a moment. These modish appliances sell out within hours of reaching shops and inspire evangelistic fervour among owners, who call them “life-savers”…
Sean McVay was two weeks shy of his 31st birthday when the Los Angeles Rams hired him in 2017, making him the youngest head coach in modern NFL history. In a league where grizzled veterans had long been the coaching archetype, the Rams’ decision to hire a 30-year-old drew plenty of skepticism. But it also…
Nicotine levels in cigarettes sold in the U.S. would have to be drastically lowered under a proposal released Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration. If finalized, the change would mean that cigarettes would lose their ability to hook most people into addiction. “By reducing the nicotine level of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco…
Poison? What poison? Some bacteria may treat the powerful toxins bathing poison dart frog skin like a buffet. The alkaloid chemicals that poison dart frogs wield on their skin increase the variety of microbial species living there, researchers report December 4 in Current Biology. Some of those microbes even seem to dine on the potent…
The UK government will not sign off a deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius until Donald Trump’s administration has had a chance to consider the future of the joint military base, Downing Street has confirmed. Allies of the US president-elect have been critical of the deal because of the implications for the…
Lethal snake venom may be countered by new AI-designed proteins
On 15 August 2021, 21-year-old Sam Pordale and his father found themselves part of a huge, panicked crowd of people all trying to get to Kabul airport and away from the Taliban militants who, just hours earlier, had taken control of Afghanistan’s capital city. Between the crowd and the entrance to the airport, Pordale could…