Andy Extance

Decent analysis of our local elections last night, the first I could vote in as a citizen.

It's not just the price of petrol at the pump...

International Women's Day: The home is the most dangerous place

On International Women's Day, domestic violence charity Refuge reveals women are most at risk at home to shatter dangerous misconceptions.

The Joy of Pretty Clothes A Mens-wears wearers mens-wear guide

My friend Jonas put together this lovely guide on how men can dress colourfully and respect the planet. Having read it, I will explore second hand wool more this year. substack.com/home/post/p-...

'The new tobacco': The cities banning fossil fuel adverts Cities across the world are clearing their billboards of flight ads, SUVs, cruise ships and petrol cars in an attempt to cut emissions.

This is a good talking point for the upcoming local elections, I think. Can we get people to commit to banning such ads in more places? www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025 - Carbon Brief Clean-energy technologies drove more than a third of the growth in China’s economy in 2025 – and more than 90% of the rise in investment.

Staggering! Chinw's clean-energy sectors nearly doubled in real value between 2022-25 and – if they were a country – would now be the 8th-largest economy in the world. In China and worldwide clean energy investments far exceed fossil fuels. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-cle...

Green views ‘as important as good looks’ for Gen Z A study revealed that three quarters of young daters prioritise environmental values as much as physical compatibility

Gen Z knows what's up.

Caring about the planet is hot.

www.thetimes.com/life-style/s...

A not-so-small joy this week was getting a couple of my favourite pairs of trousers repaired by Quick Stitch in #Exeter - lovely to keep them going, and it would have been much more expensive to replace them

Vegetarian diet can slash risk of five cancers by up to 30%, study finds University of Oxford researchers find vegetarians have a reduced risk of five types of cancers, including a 28% lower risk of kidney cancer and 31% lower risk of multiple myeloma.

Surprised this paper hasn't had more coverage - but maybe that's because it's confirming what we already know about eating meat raising cancer risk? news.sky.com/story/vegeta... 🧪

EU leaders should not rush to revamp green-hydrogen rules Some policymakers think that climate-friendly policies are impeding the adoption of green hydrogen. They should ask scientists to review the evidence.

I too am interested in what the evidence says about the EU's rules about green hydrogen. Are they really holding up deployment? How many planned projects were greenwash? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

UK media groups unite to tackle AI ‘scraping’ of journalism Coalition, including BBC, Sky News and FT, wants to establish shared standards and licensing frameworks for access

Interesting, but is it too much for articles to actually link to the full text of the open letter?
Luckily the press gazette story included a contact email and from that I found spurcoalition.org.
www.ft.com/content/2622...

ONS: UK's low carbon and clean energy sectors generate record revenues of £77bn in 2024 Impressive growth in turnover and employment continues across the UK's low carbon and renewable energy industries, latest Office for National Statistics data confirms

ICYM In a year when the UK economy grew 1.1% the Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy grew 12 per cent. And yet somehow it remains received wisdom on much of the right of British politics that clean technologies are bad and must be stopped. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526135...

Do you: Have a strong interest in science? A passion for journalism and writing? Our paid 3-month internship might be for you! We are looking for talented candidates from all backgrounds, especially those traditionally underrepresented in publishing. Applications close 9 March 2026.

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Why China and Europe should collaborate to ‘defossilize’ the world’s carbon The world needs non-fossil sources of carbon. It’s a no-brainer for nations working towards this goal to join forces.

Really pleased to see defossilisation being covered by Nature again and raising the need for more collaboration between Europe and China on it. 🧪https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00383-5

"An accumulation of failings": West of England Line problems laid bare Problems with rolling stock, traincrew and assets revealed as passenger group continues to decry the standard of service on South Western Railway’s longest route

FWIW my local line was renationalised last May and it seems like the change may not have been the smoothest www.railmagazine.com/news/-an-acc...

AI suspicion: Are all headlines with colons in now written by LLMs?

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-lo...

This piece is getting attention, and rightly. All the more reason that the occasional wayward element not be used as reason for Edgelords to dismiss the rest. Genetic algorithms are not "systems theory mixed with race science". They are...
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...

FACTCHECK: Centrica's Chris O'Shea got blanket coverage for claiming electricity will cost more in 2030 than in energy crisis (Chris Stark: "he's wrong on this")

I asked Centrica for evidence – they didn’t reply

(Bills in crisis were >2x today, before huge govt subsidies)
1/4

You should pitch an updated version to Scientific American as an op ed or to Nature as an essay www.nature.com/nature/artic...

Microplastics: How Worried Should You Be?

And if you want a detailed dive into exactly how worried you should be about the issue I highly recommend the Science Vs podcast episode about it: open.spotify.com/episode/4UoQ...

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’

For further background read the Guardian articles at:
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

If you’re worried about microplastics, you may have found some of the recent coverage confusing. I attempt to explain from a level of how science works broadly in this video, and about the details of the methods involved in my Chemistry World piece at bit.ly/microspat 🧪

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months

* Down in 2025
* Still below Mar 2024
* Clean energy wave a key factor

If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far…

www.carbonbrief.org/...

Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time - Carbon Brief Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025, a record figure that reveals the backlash against net-zero in the right-leaning press

Great @carbonbrief.org analysis. The shift is political, not factual, including attacks on Ed Miliband from papers he tried to get more tightly regulated.

Also, the right opposes net zero but doesn't deny climate change, so what are they going to do about it?

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

Opaque UK funding changes herald cuts to facilities and research programmes paused Projects face withdrawals and delays as UKRI prioritises economic growth and applied research over curiosity-driven areas

My new @chemistryworld.com story reports shift in UK funding away from curiosity-led research towards more applied, strategic projects. That threatens some large facilities and emphasises fewer, larger projects over small organisation support. Read more at www.chemistryworld.com/news/opaque-... 🧪

ECSJ2026 : call for session proposals It’s time to contribute to the next European Conference of Science Journalism (ECSJ2026), which will take place from 14 to 16 October in Hanover, Germany. It will be held jointly with the annual Wisse...

One more week to send in your session proposals for the European Conference of Science Journalism! Hurry! Hurry! efsj.eu/2026/01/05/e...

Parliamentlive.tv Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

Some thoughts on the select committee appearance by the boss of UKRI, Ian Chapman yesterday. It’s a long watch but can be seen here: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...
Thread 🧵

When we hear about the chemical industry we’re used to thinking about large, dirty oil processing facilities. But can Scotland make chemicals from…. whisky? Read more in my @chemistryworld.com World story at bit.ly/whischem 🧪

Flood-prone Ynysybwl homes to be bought and bulldozed by council Homes on a street at severe risk of flooding will be bought by a local council.

We are now bulldozing houses in the UK to make way for climate change.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's slow to figure out how to make the molecules you want, speeding it up would be a big deal. I used to work in drug discovery, it's what happens in the first stages of finding molecules to target a specific biochemical system.