Our increasing demand for metals and minerals is putting over four thousand vertebrate species at risk, with the raw materials needed for clean energy infrastructure often located in global biodiversity hotspots, a study has found.
Could waste material from mining be used to trap CO2 emissions? A new £8.6 million research programme will investigate the possibilities. Simon Redfern (Department of Earth Sciences) explains, in this article from The Conversation.
Vital to many modern technologies yet mined in few places, the ‘rare earth elements’ are in fact not that rare – they are just difficult to find in concentrations that make them economic to mine. Researchers from Cambridge University and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) are investigating whether the remarkable properties of these materials can be used to track them down from the air.
Simon Redfern (Department of Earth Sciences) discusses how the "Star of Adam" sapphire was formed in the highlands of Sri Lanka.
The plight of Binayak Sen, the Indian public health expert recently bailed from prison on controversial sedition charges, is symptomatic of the problems facing India’s adivasis (indigenous or tribal peoples), Cambridge University researchers have claimed.
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