Two peregrine falcons hatch at Nottingham Trent University
The first peregrine falcon chicks have hatched this year at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).The university, which manages the nest box in partnership with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, announced their arrival in a social media post on Tuesday.Four peregrine falcon eggs have been laid this year at the nest at the NTU's Newton Building, the trust said.A webcam monitoring the birds and their chicks was set up in 2012.
NTU's Facebook post said: "We're so excited to welcome two extra members to our City Campus."Mum, P9, and Dad, Archie, have been keeping a watchful eye on the new chicks over the last few weeks."We've loved watching them bring back food and keeping their fluffy offspring warm."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Public health bodies urged to launch period tracking apps to protect data
Public health bodies should launch alternatives to commercial period tracker apps, experts have said, as a report warns women's personal data is at risk of being harvested by private companies. Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a 'goldmine' for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to the research by the University of Cambridge. And the financial worth of this data is 'vastly underestimated' by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking regulation, the report says. In the wrong hands, cycle tracking app (CTA) data could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking, and even limit access to abortion, the research suggests. The authors call for better governance of the booming femtech industry to protect users when their data is sold at scale, arguing that apps must provide clear consent options rather than all-or-nothing data collection, and urge public health bodies to launch alternatives to commercial CTAs. 'Menstrual cycle tracking apps are presented as empowering women and addressing the gender health gap,' said the report's lead author, Dr Stefanie Felsberger, of Cambridge's Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. 'Yet the business model behind their services rests on commercial use, selling user data and insights to third parties for profit. 'There are real and frightening privacy and safety risks to women as a result of the commodification of the data collected by cycle tracking app companies.' Most cycle tracking apps are targeted at women aiming to get pregnant, so the download data alone is of huge commercial value, according to the report. Along with homebuying, no other life event is linked to such dramatic shifts in consumer behaviour. Data on pregnancy is believed to be more than 200 times more valuable than data on age, gender or location for targeted advertising. The report says period tracking could also be used to target women at different points in their cycle. The three most popular apps had estimated global download figures of a quarter of a billion in 2024. The femtech market – digital products focused on women's health and wellbeing – will be worth more than $60bn (£44bn) by 2027, the report says. With such intense demand for period tracking, the authors called on public health bodies including the NHS in the UK to develop their own transparent and trustworthy apps to rival those from private companies, with apps allowing permission for data to be used in medical research. 'The UK is ideally positioned to solve the question of access to menstrual data for researchers, as well as privacy and data commodification concerns, by developing an NHS app to track menstrual cycles,' said Felsberger, who added that the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood in the US already had its own app but the UK lacked an equivalent. 'Apps that are situated within public healthcare systems, and not driven primarily by profit, will mitigate privacy violations, provide much-needed data on reproductive health, and give people more agency over how their menstrual data is used.' Prof Gina Neff, the executive director of the Minderoo Centre, said: 'The use of cycle tracking apps is at an all-time high. Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data.' In the UK and EU, period tracking data is considered 'special category', as with that on genetics or ethnicity, and has more legal safeguarding. In the US, data on menstrual cycles has been collected by officials in an attempt to undermine abortion access, the report says.
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
Huge number of horses' facial expressions revealed as scientists discover equine ‘language'
HORSES have their own 'language' with more than 800 facial expressions, scientists have found. Researchers set out to unravel the mystery of the creatures' long faces and find how they exhibit a range of emotions. Aberystwyth University observed horses when they were friendly, angry or tense, attentive and playful. They then analysed individual muscle movements, created a list of facial expressions among horses and matched them to moods of other animals. During friendly interactions, horses pointed their ears forward and extended their nose. To show dominance, they flattened their ears, dilated their nostrils and lowered their heads. When horses were alert, scientists noticed they put their ears forward and increased blinking. 'Play faces' resembled primates and dogs — as horses opened their mouths, raised chins and had visible eye whites. Lead researcher Dr Sebastian McBride said: 'We found horses use a wide range of facial movements, which vary depending on the social context. "What's particularly fascinating is some of these facial behaviours, especially during play, mirror those seen in chimpanzees and dogs, supporting the hypothesis facial behaviours may be deep rooted in mammalian biology.' Scientists indentified the AUH21 'facial tightener' movement, previously only seen in humans and gibbons. It could help vets detect pain in horses. The research team also said the study would change how we interact with horses, 'leading to better care and stronger human-animal relationships'. 1
BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
Will Porton Down government science labs actually move?
A decision is finally expected on whether to move hundreds of government science jobs out of Wiltshire to Health Security Agency at Porton Down researches how to tackle the world's most infectious diseases, and prepare the UK for future the last 15 years plans have been worked up to relocate its 900 workers to new facilities in Harlow, but the estimated costs have spiralled - ministers expect a final decision in Wednesday's government spending MP covering Porton Down - Conservative John Glen - said: "It's taken 10 years to still be in doubt whether this should still happen and the costs have gone up six-fold." The National Audit Office reported the cost of the whole project is estimated to be £3.2bn, a figure more than 500% higher than the initial forecast of £530m. When it was officially announced in 2015 that the labs would move to Harlow, Essex, the MP there at the time said he was pleased and it would "bring thousands of jobs".Speaking to the BBC this week, Mr Glen said the new build would be "dressed up" as a world-class hub."But Porton Down already is world-class," he said."We've already got the world's best scientists doing amazing collaborative work." He added staff get paid to do work for other countries, including the US, and when unions asked workers there several years ago, most did not want to said: "There's an established pattern of activity there. We do need more investment but not the extent of building and refurbishing an unsuitable lab in Harlow."Scientific work has been going on at Porton Down for 100 years, but much the infrastructure is Mr Glen said there had been "additional investment" because of the Covid-19 pandemic, so the government needs to "be realistic"."This is an opportunity to save money, to reverse George Osborne's ambitious decision but still invest in science and an established rhythm of work," he said. No construction work has started at the Harlow site, which is being maintained by staff to keep it government said it had been considering options and whether building a new facility is still estimates if the Harlow centre is built, it will not open before 2036 - some 15 years behind Health Secretary Wes Streeting was asked about the possible move in March, he said: "[This] has been running around the system so long that it is now used in a case study for senior civil servant recruitment," he said."The worst decision is indecision."It has plagued us for too long and I hope we can soon report back to the house with a decision on that for everyone's benefit."
