Media playback is unsupported on your device Brazil’s leader has ordered the armed forces to fight record forest fires in the Amazon, amid international outrage over rising deforestation. President Jair Bolsonaro deployed soldiers in nature reserves, indigenous lands and border areas beset by fires. The move is an apparent reversal from Mr Bolsonaro, who has

Walmart came out swinging earlier this week in a lawsuit that accused Tesla of breach of contract and gross negligence over problems with rooftop solar panel systems installed at the retail giant’s stores. Now, just days later, the lawsuit has been placed on hold while the two companies try to reach an agreement that would

A Gloucestershire man has started walking Nancy Drew the tortoise to the pub and around town. Jason Smith says the African sulcata tortoise, which is actually male, needs to burn off energy, as in the wild he would ordinarily be looking for a mate at this time of year. The creature has become famous around

Farmers could soon get a better understanding of how pigs are feeling thanks to artificial intelligence. The technology, which is in its early stages, scans the animals’ faces to try and identify whether an animal is stressed or happy. Scientists at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory say farmers have a moral obligation to enhance the welfare

From the time he was a high school student, Rohit Kalyanpur thought it was peculiar that although it’s possible to create energy from a solar panel, the panels have long been used almost exclusively on rooftops and as part of industrial-scale solar grids. “I hadn’t seen [anything solar-powered] in the things people use every day

As the technologies that were once considered science fiction become the purview of science, the venture capital firms that were once investing at the industry’s fringes are now finding themselves at the heart of the technology industry. Investing in the commercialization of technologies like genetic engineering, quantum computing, digital avatars, augmented reality, new human-computer interfaces,

Media playback is unsupported on your device Targets for 75% of rivers to be healthy by 2027 are “very unlikely” to be met in England, a charity has warned. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says rivers are “used as open sewers”. The Environment Agency predicts 75% of rivers in England and along the

Media playback is unsupported on your device Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests. The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head

In a disused air raid shelter under London one company is growing salad crops, but what are the benefits, and drawbacks of vertical farming? We travelled to Growing Underground in Clapham to meet one of the founders, Richard Ballard. Video journalist: Alex Dackevych For more Focus on Farming content, visit our web page at www.bbc.co.uk/focusonfarming

Scientists working on an audacious mission to the ocean world of Europa can proceed with the final design and construction of the spacecraft, Nasa says. The Europa Clipper mission will target the ice-encrusted moon of Jupiter, which is considered a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth. Below its icy shell, Europa is

Sir Elton John has defended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s use of private jets – and said he paid to carbon offset their trip to his French home. The singer said he provided Prince Harry, Meghan and their son Archie with his private plane to “maintain a high level of much-needed protection”. The royal

Royal Dutch Shell, the energy giant known for its fossil fuel production and hundreds of Shell gas stations, is creeping into the electric vehicle-power business. The company’s first DC fast charger launched Monday at a Shell gas station in Singapore. Greenlots, an EV charging startup acquired by Shell in January, installed the charger. This is

A Nasa facility in Alabama that developed the giant rocket for the Apollo programme in the 1960s will play a key role in sending astronauts down to the Moon’s surface in 2024. The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville will lead the development of a vehicle that will land astronauts on the body for the

Different approaches to protecting elephants are set to dominate the debate at a key conservation conference starting in Geneva today. Delegates from more than 180 countries are gathering for the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Some African nations are again pushing to reopen the trade in ivory. However others

Concern has been growing over the spread of a deadly disease among the Welsh bee population. American Foulbrood (AFB) is a highly-infectious disease which is caused by a spore-forming bacteria transferred to the bees through infected food. It is described as the most widespread and destructive of all the bee brood diseases with no cure.

The earliest evidence of fish tapeworm in Britain has been discovered preserved in human faeces, according to experts at Cambridge University. The finds were unearthed at a site dubbed “Britain’s Pompeii”, a burnt-out 3,000-year-old village at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire. Fish tapeworm can grow up to 10m (32ft) long and live coiled in the intestines.

The arrival of human ancestors in Europe some 40,000 years ago coincided with the downfall of the cave bear, scientists have revealed. New evidence suggests humans hunted the bear and drove it from caves, putting it on the road to extinction. The fate of the species was sealed by other pressures, such as the onset

Most of us, by now, are aware that all sorts of crazy stuff is happening to the planet’s climate and the blame is pretty much universally recognized as lying with humans, pumping more and more carbon into the atmosphere. Scientists are now saying tree planting, for instance, has to happen very, very quickly if we

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has complained to Twitter over a tweet by Brexit campaigner Arron Banks aimed at climate change activist Greta Thunberg. On Wednesday, Mr Banks referred to Ms Thunberg’s sea voyage across the Atlantic and tweeted: “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August…” Ms Thunberg, who chooses not to fly, is sailing

Among the millions of channels on YouTube is “Dr Becky”, an astrophysicist who is trying to encourage others into STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). As a research fellow at the University of Oxford, Dr Becky Smethurst specialises in black holes, but outside the day job she posts videos on all sorts of space-themed