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Supply chain issues in a world of Covid-19Heathrow Airport is the UK’s largest port by value, with 34 per cent of the country’s cargo passing through and 95 per cent usually carried in the belly-hold of passenger planes. However, since mid-March it has seen a sharp rise in cargo-only flights from roughly 50 a month to, at […]

Climate change could cause sudden extinctions through 21st centuryThe researchers believe there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and the first waves could already be happening. According to  lead author Dr Alex Pigot: “We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don’t increase gradually. Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain […]

Covid-19 disinformation online confusing for many Brits, Ofcom findsDisinformation about Covid-19 varies from the essentially harmless to dangerous and divisive. Ofcom found that 35 per cent of adults online have seen the false claim that drinking more water can flush out the virus, while 24 per cent have seen false claims that gargling with salt water […]

Serious cyber-security flaws uncovered in Ford and Volkswagen carsThe consumer group said that connected tech features of the Ford Focus Titanium Automatic 1.0L petrol and a Volkswagen Polo SEL TSI Manual 1.0L petrol – the latest models of two of the most popular cars in Europe – were vulnerable. Which? warned that the cars could […]

Act with ‘urgency’ to prepare comms infrastructure for quantum computersQuantum computing involves the use of quantum phenomena such as superposition. Quantum computers use ‘qubits’ instead of bits: while bits can be either a 0 or a 1, a qubit can represent 0, 1, or any superposition of these two states. Although quantum computers remain in […]

Lockdown Challenge: build a bird box and an engineer’s caveWe are all stuck – imprisoned even – at home, full-time, with our children. What an opportunity! Most engineers and technologists will still be working, although not all. But even then, the removal of commuting time and the streamlining of work down to what is important […]

Large UK tech firms say government is not providing them with coronavirus supportWhile Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) announced support packages for firms last month under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme, some businesses are excluded because their revenues are too high to be covered. The loans are paid by regular high-street lenders, but backed by the […]