Writers and students break with the use of semicolons
The study by Lisa McLendon, author of The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, found that 67 per cent of British students never or rarely used a semicolon and only 11 per cent of respondents described themselves as frequent users.
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The Guardian
15 minutes ago
- The Guardian
UK electricity firms leak oil underground in ‘huge problem for environment'
Electricity companies are leaking millions of litres of oil underground throughout the UK, the Guardian can reveal. In the past 15 years, 3m litres (660,000 gallons) of oil has been spilt under southern England from cables owned by the electricity distribution company UK Power Networks. But leaks are occurring UK-wide; the largest single leak reported in recent years was in Edinburgh, when 24,000 litres was spilt from a ScottishPower Energy Networks (SPEN) cable. The oil is inside ageing electricity cables which were mainly installed in the 1950s to 1970s. It acts as an insulating fluid and helps to keep the cables cool, but as the cables age they leak increasingly. One scientist who has researched the cables said the leaks presented a huge problem for the environment, while Greenpeace has described the findings as extremely concerning. The Energy Networks Association (ENA), which represents the electricity distribution companies, said heavy oil had not been used in new cables for 40 years and many cables had been replaced. UK Power Networks said it had made investments to reduce leakage and was committed to replacing the cables entirely in the long term. Dr Susmit Basu researched the underground cables between 2015 and 2018, when he worked at a science and technology company which conducted research and development for a UK Power Networks project focusing on reducing oil leaks from them. He said the leaks presented a 'huge problem for the environment' and were slowly contributing to major biodiversity loss over long periods of time. Basu visited one site in Norfolk where a cable was leaking oil continuously and had saturated the soil. The oil had seeped into the bodies of trees via the roots, then damaged leaves and caused them to become yellowish in colour and develop spots. The oil-soaked soil had to be removed and replaced with fresh soil. But no one knew 'how much of the fluid the rainwater took with it – that was anyone's guess', Basu said. Usually an underground oil leak caused no immediate danger, Basu said; it was rarely the case that 'this night there was a leak and tomorrow it was a disaster zone'. But with time the oil travelled through the soil into the nearest water bodies including rivers, lakes or the sea, killing useful fungi, bacteria, fish and other aquatic life. Maintenance workers often topped up cables when a drop in oil levels caused them to stop working effectively, Basu said. 'Where's those few thousands of litres going?' He said the leaked oil 'will not simply disappear' and would stay in the environment for thousands or millions of years. Basu said companies were rolling out solutions to the leaks, but doing so was costly and could be complicated. He also suggested there was little public pressure to act: 'The leaking is invisible to the public eye … nobody cares [about the leaks], nobody knows, nobody can see. Those materials should not be in the soil … we need electricity but we also need the environment and our surrounding atmosphere to be clean.' Companies and regulators do not publish information about precisely where leaks have occurred or oil-filled cables are located, though freedom of information requests from environmental regulators reveal leaks have happened underneath cities, residential areas, riverbeds and arable fields. Lily-Rose Ellis, a campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: 'This is really concerning and is yet more evidence of the urgent need to update our crumbling energy infrastructure. 'These cables are at best outdated, but some are virtually antiques and are urgently in need of replacement. The UK electricity grid was designed and built for the energy system of the last century.' UK Power Networks is responsible for more electricity cable leaks than any other company, freedom of information requests to the energy regulator Ofgem have confirmed. Electricity North West, Northern Powergrid, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), SPEN and National Grid Electricity Distribution (formerly Western Power Distribution) all also own fluid-filled cables. The largest single spill recorded in recent years was underneath Edinburgh. A single SPEN cable leaked 24,000 litres of oil between late 2023 and its being sealed in early 2024. An additional ScottishPower cable leaked a further 6,000 litres in Edinburgh in 2023. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency refused freedom of information requests for details on the Edinburgh leaks on the grounds that an investigation was taking place. SPEN stated at the time: 'Neither leak has resulted in oil contamination of watercourses, and no enforcement actions or undertakings resulted from the two incidents notified to the regulator.' A spokesperson for ENA said the electricity distribution companies had not used heavy oil in newly-laid fluid-filled cables for about 40 years and now used biodegradable substances, solid insulation and sealed cabling. It said 500km (310 miles) of older cables had been replaced in the past 10 years, and oil-filled cables made up less than 1% of the grid around London and the south-east. UK Power Networks said it had made significant investments to reduce oil leakage since 2011, replacing 126km of oil-filled cables, and was committed to replacing them entirely. It said it worked with the Environment Agency for reporting and mitigation and adhered to relevant operating codes. It said: 'During repairs, the company recovers as much cable fluid as possible.' This included fluid pumped into containers and oil absorbed in contaminated soil, which is removed in sealed skips and disposed of by specialists. Ofgem said it had made it clear to companies that they should do everything possible to mitigate environmental impacts, including preventing leaks by ensuring their assets were well maintained and reliable. Research for this article was supported by the Dark Green programme, an initiative of the Centre for Investigative Journalism and
Daily Mail
42 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
SMALL CAP IDEA: Ketamine drip therapy firm is taking on alcoholism
As the dust settles on its successful takeover of Awakn Life Sciences, investors are starting to appreciate the potential of Solvonis Therapeutics. Yet the current valuation of £23million doesn't tell the full story. Or perhaps it tells its own tale: that the Brits are blinkered, even oblivious to a story unfolding on the other side of the Atlantic that has real and positive implications for Solvonis. More on this later. First, it's probably worth refreshing ourselves as to what the company is and does. Quite simply, it is a biotech company that is developing potential treatments for illnesses such as alcohol abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression, where innovation and treatment options are sorely lacking. And they have been for a number of decades. It has four programmes, one in phase III, which on a more progressive and capital-deep market such as Nasdaq would in and of itself justify at least one additional nought to Solvonis' market capitalisation. Again, more on this later. Its lead drug is SNV-001, an experimental treatment being tested in advanced clinical trials for people with severe alcohol use disorder (AUD). It combines two approaches: a carefully controlled dose of ketamine (a dual anaesthetic and painkiller medicine that affects certain brain receptors) given by drip, and a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, designed to specifically help prevent relapse. The aim is to see if using these together can help people stay off alcohol more effectively than either treatment alone. Early trial results for SNV-001 have been encouraging. In phase II testing, people given the treatment had 50 per cent fewer heavy drinking days compared to those who received a placebo. Even more striking, on average 86 per cent of participants stayed off alcohol for six months after treatment, while only 2 per cent had managed this before joining the trial. The results were so good that the UK Department of Health through the National Institute of Health and Care Research are co-funding the trial. Looking ahead, the company plans to seek what is called a mixed-full approval in both the UK and EU, which could mean up to 10 years of market exclusivity if successful. Its second asset is where the hidden value resides and where, I would contend, the UK investing public just isn't recognising the upside. Called SVN-002, it is an experimental treatment being developed in the much larger US alcohol addiction treatment market It uses esketamine, closely related to ketamine, and, crucially, a compound already being used in Johnson & Johnson's new blockbuster, Spravato, in nasal form, to combat treatment-resistant depression. Top marks if you made the link. Don't worry if you didn't; but pay attention at the back! So alike are the two compounds that Solvonis last month kicked off a process designed to provide scientific 'bridging' data linking SVN‑002 to Spravato. By referencing the existing drug, Solvonis aims to pursue the 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway, a route that allows companies to rely on existing data to streamline approval processes. Not only this, the company also hopes SVN-002 will be eligible under the same reimbursement codes as Spravato, potentially saving significant time and cost. Now, here's the eyes-on-stalk moment. Spravato is already generating annual revenues of more than $1billion and analysts believe this figure could actually peak at $5billion. However, its addressable market is a couple of million Americans with severe depression. Contrast this with the estimated 22 million people in the States who struggle badly with alcohol. As they say in the States, you do the math(s). American investors have not been slow to cotton on. Companies listed across there paddling in similar, or adjacent, pools, the likes of Atai Life Sciences, MindMed, GH Research and Compass Pathways, have been in lift-off mode. Meanwhile, pharma giant Abbvie is reported in the US business press last week to be preparing a $1billion offer for a privately owned-US peer of Solvonis, a company called Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals. In other words, real buzz around the sector in the States that has so far been absent here in the UK, which is also reflected in valuations stateside, which are orders of magnitude larger than Solvonis. Atai, for example, has programmes barely emerged from phase I and carries a market capitalisation of more than $800million. That reflects America's greater understanding of not just biotech, but the potential of this new emerging area of treatment. Value inflexion points for companies such as Solvonis tend to come at the end of clinical studies – phase II usually, but also phase III. This is when large pharma is sufficiently emboldened to invest in the expensive process of follow-on studies, and/or pouring tens of millions of dollars into gaining regulatory sign-off. A licensing agreement of this type not only provides third-party validation of the work to date, it comes with financial kickers such as upfront and milestone payments. We already know that Solvonis has drafted in Pharma Ventures, a specialist in partnership and alliances of the sort outlined above, to shop SNV-001. So, one can safely assume conversations are taking place. It will be interesting to track the role in negotiations played by Solvonis chair Dennis Purcell. He is also a director of IGI, which recently cut a $1.9 billion deal with AbbVie, with $700million of that upfront. Okay, this was in the oncology arena, but Purcell has first-hand experience of going toe-to-toe with big pharma. And this will be crucial when talks hit the nitty-gritty phase. A recent research note penned by the team at Singers used the net present value of Solvonis' two clinical stage assets, allied to what it calls a 'risk-adjusted patient-based forecast', to come up with a 1.6p price target. So, what does all this mean? Well, it suggests Solvonis' share price of 0.37p may not reflect the company's true potential.
The Independent
44 minutes ago
- The Independent
The worst drinks for microplastic contamination revealed
Microplastics are all around us – in the air we breathe, in seas and rivers, they're found in the guts of sharks, and inside growing plants. They're also inside humans, too: in our blood, accumulating in our brains, and even in our testicles. So it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that one of the key means of entering the body is through the fluids we drink. Previous studies have established that microplastics are present in both tap water and bottled water, but new research has revealed that hot drinks may be an even bigger source of microplastics than was previously realised. A research team at the University of Birmingham tested 155 common soft drinks, including hot and cold drinks, for microplastics to get a picture of average human exposure through a realistic spectrum of daily drinks available in one country. The study, believed to be the first of its kind, found the highest concentrations of microplastics were in hot tea and hot coffee. The study also tested iced tea and coffee for microplastics, but found significantly less, suggesting the high temperatures and processes used for making hot drinks contribute to the levels of microplastics which end up in the product. The team assessed 31 different types of drinks in total from popular UK brands, all bought from supermarkets and coffee shops in 2024. These included hot and iced coffee, hot and iced tea, juices, energy drinks, and soft drinks. The samples were filtered, and then microplastic counts were determined through microscope imaging. Cold drinks were filtered immediately, while hot drinks were allowed to cool for 30 minutes before analysis. Hot tea in disposable cups contained the highest level of microplastics (MPs), averaging 22MPs per cup, compared to 14MPs per cup for glass cups. More expensive teabags leached the greatest amount of plastic, the study found, averaging 24 to 30MPs per cup. Similarly, the research team said that for hot coffee, their findings "strongly suggest that the disposable cup material is a primary source of [microplastics] in our hot coffee samples'. As not all samples were cup-sized, the team expressed their overall findings in microplastics per litre. The authors said their study "proves for the first time that assessment of exposure via drinking water only may substantially underestimate the risk" posed to humans by higher microplastics prevalence in other drinks. The same team published research in 2024, revealing the average microplastics concentration in tap water (24 to 56 MP per litre) was 'statistically indistinguishable" from that in bottled water (26 to 48 MP per litre). They said the new research "serves as a critical step towards better understanding of the extent of MPs exposure under real-life scenarios, and advocates for more comprehensive studies for accurate risk assessment of MPs intake via dietary sources, to enable broader environmental and public health interventions". They added: "Our results also confirmed plastic packaging material as a major source of MPs to the studied beverages. Higher concentrations of MPs were detected in hot coffee and tea, compared to the iced version of the same beverage, highlighting the role of temperature in enhancing the release of MPs from packages to hot beverages."
