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.