Environment

Going on in the world this week

Artur Donaldson

30 Nov 2018

Brazil – This week Brazil’s government announced that it will no longer be hosting the UN global summit on climate change next year citing costs. The conference could cost Brazil up to $100 million. Brazil spent $4.6 billion on the 2015 Olympic games and it is expected that $33 trillion worth of damage worldwide will result from climate change by 2050 according to a 2016 report. Brazil’s prime minister, Mr. Bolsonaro, has called manmade climate change a plot by “Marxists” to stifle economic growth.

How trashy is your period?

Menstrual cups – why you should care about periods even when you don’t have one.

Grinding to a halt – China bans imports of waste

Last year the UK exported two-thirds of its plastic waste to China. In 2018 it banned imports. What will happen?

Going on in the world

Monday sees the beginning of the COP 24 conference in Katowice, Poland. Previous conferences include 2015’s COP 21, in which 190 nations committed to limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In other news, Felix sees the beginning of a new column on

Can a tiger change its stripes?

China has postponed previous plans to lift the 25-year-old ban on the sale and use of rhinoceros horn and tiger bone for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), following an international furore. This announcement comes two weeks after the State Council’s decision in October to reverse the 1993 ban on the

News

Grok removed from College AI platform

Grok, the generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, is no longer available on dAIsy, Imperial’s artificial intelligence platform. Staff and students can still converse with various models of ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, and Llama. Grok, which is part of billionaire Elon Musk’s tech empire, has been at the

News

Imperial defeats Sheffield in University Challenge

Imperial College London’s University Challenge team has progressed into the semi-finals after narrowly beating the University of Sheffield 160-120. Sheffield took a strong lead, but Imperial managed an impressive comeback thanks to the efforts of team captain Oscar O’Flanagan. “Imperial, that kimchi keeps bringing you luck,” quipped host

Books

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

A delicious collection of Murakami’s unique brand of realistic weirdness in 24 short stories. Some ended abruptly, some ended perfectly, some could only be understood in a certain frame of mind. It’s hard not to be drawn back again and again by any writing by Murakami – to dislike