Lead Story
Critically endangered kākāpō population hits recovery-era high of 325
New Zealand's Department of Conservation confirmed the official kākāpō population reached 325 birds on September 1, after 90 chicks from the 2026 breeding season were added once the youngest surviving chick reached the 150-day independence milestone. It is a record single-season total for the flightless, critically endangered parrot, following a four-year gap between breeding seasons, and lifts the population above 300 for what is thought to be the first time in roughly 75 years.
Read more →Lead Story
Critically endangered kākāpō population hits recovery-era high of 325
New Zealand's Department of Conservation confirmed the official kākāpō population reached 325 birds on September 1, after 90 chicks from the 2026 breeding season were added once the youngest surviving chick reached the 150-day independence milestone. It is a record single-season total for the flightless, critically endangered parrot, following a four-year gap between breeding seasons, and lifts the population above 300 for what is thought to be the first time in roughly 75 years.
England widens NHS access to life-extending breast cancer drug Enhertu
NICE confirmed on September 17 that a commercial pricing deal, reached under the UK/US Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreement, will let the NHS in England offer Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) to adults with HER2-low metastatic or unresectable breast cancer whose disease progressed after chemotherapy, reversing an earlier rejection on cost grounds. Trial data showed the drug nearly doubled progression-free survival to 9.9 months versus 5.1 months on standard chemotherapy, and lifted median overall survival to 23.4 months compared with 16.8 months.
Read more →England widens NHS access to life-extending breast cancer drug Enhertu
NICE confirmed on September 17 that a commercial pricing deal, reached under the UK/US Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreement, will let the NHS in England offer Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) to adults with HER2-low metastatic or unresectable breast cancer whose disease progressed after chemotherapy, reversing an earlier rejection on cost grounds. Trial data showed the drug nearly doubled progression-free survival to 9.9 months versus 5.1 months on standard chemotherapy, and lifted median overall survival to 23.4 months compared with 16.8 months.
"Superhuman" AI tool flags heart disease from a routine ECG in under two seconds
Researchers at Imperial College London reported on September 1 that an AI model trained on 10 million ECG recordings and refined on more than 72,000 ECGs with linked echocardiograms can flag heart failure and valve disease from a routine ECG reading in less than two seconds. In a US trial of 67,000 patients, the tool identified up to 81% of heart-failure cases and 90% of heart-valve-disease cases, extracting patterns beyond what doctors can typically see by eye; it is now being trialled in NHS patients to help fast-track people who need further scans.
Read more →"Superhuman" AI tool flags heart disease from a routine ECG in under two seconds
Researchers at Imperial College London reported on September 1 that an AI model trained on 10 million ECG recordings and refined on more than 72,000 ECGs with linked echocardiograms can flag heart failure and valve disease from a routine ECG reading in less than two seconds. In a US trial of 67,000 patients, the tool identified up to 81% of heart-failure cases and 90% of heart-valve-disease cases, extracting patterns beyond what doctors can typically see by eye; it is now being trialled in NHS patients to help fast-track people who need further scans.
New process turns mixed plastic waste into clean hydrogen while trapping its carbon
Engineers at UCLA and South Korea's Ewha Womans University published a method in PNAS this summer that converts a mixture of the three most common consumer plastics -- PET, polyethylene and polypropylene -- into hydrogen in a single reactor, without needing to sort them first. The process runs at lower temperatures than traditional gasification and captures most of the plastic's carbon in solid or liquid form rather than releasing it as CO2; the team estimates it could eventually produce hydrogen for around $4 per kilogram, competitive with subsidized green hydrogen made by electrolysis.
Read more →New process turns mixed plastic waste into clean hydrogen while trapping its carbon
Engineers at UCLA and South Korea's Ewha Womans University published a method in PNAS this summer that converts a mixture of the three most common consumer plastics -- PET, polyethylene and polypropylene -- into hydrogen in a single reactor, without needing to sort them first. The process runs at lower temperatures than traditional gasification and captures most of the plastic's carbon in solid or liquid form rather than releasing it as CO2; the team estimates it could eventually produce hydrogen for around $4 per kilogram, competitive with subsidized green hydrogen made by electrolysis.
Six rhinos rescued as poaching orphans have all now bred successfully in the wild
Six white rhinos rescued in 2017 as calves from KwaZulu-Natal reserves after poachers killed their mothers, and raised for five years through intensive rehabilitation before being released back into the wild, have each now given birth to their own calves. Conservationists say the outcome shows that, with the right veterinary and rewilding support, orphaned rhinos can recover fully enough to breed naturally and help rebuild South Africa's wild population, which has borne the brunt of the continent's poaching crisis.
Read more →Six rhinos rescued as poaching orphans have all now bred successfully in the wild
Six white rhinos rescued in 2017 as calves from KwaZulu-Natal reserves after poachers killed their mothers, and raised for five years through intensive rehabilitation before being released back into the wild, have each now given birth to their own calves. Conservationists say the outcome shows that, with the right veterinary and rewilding support, orphaned rhinos can recover fully enough to breed naturally and help rebuild South Africa's wild population, which has borne the brunt of the continent's poaching crisis.