this week, we're going be on the environment, but can we fight or even understand the changes we're inflicting on the planet was not changes we're inflicting on the planet was no— planet was not where in iceland- _ planet was not where in iceland. where - planet was not where in iceland. where high - planet was not where in iceland. where high up| planet was not where in i iceland. where high up in planet was not where in - iceland. where high up in the house. snow. icebergs. glaciers. continental ice sheets. if it's wet and cold, it's kurt of the earth because micro fear. it

should be surprised to learn that it's being smaller. it comes to how is here we find groups of scientists developing new techniques.— scientists developing new techniques. scientists developing new techniaues. , ., , ., techniques. reservoirs we have are important— techniques. reservoirs we have are important for— techniques. reservoirs we have are important for groundwater. | are important for groundwater. but also, if you lose this mass, you have instability. more erosion. it

mass, you have instability. more erosion.— more erosion. it is also a natural — more erosion. it is also a natural hazard. _ more erosion. it is also a natural hazard. if - more erosion. it is also a natural hazard. if there's| natural hazard. if there's snow. _ natural hazard. if there's snow, the ground destabilises. hydropower generation uses the weter— hydropower generation uses the water that runs down. if there is not — water that runs down. if there is not enough water, they cannot_ is not enough water, they cannot generate enough power. we need _ cannot generate enough power. we need to know where the snow is, because — we need to know where the snow is, because that is the water of the — is, because that is the water of the future quite there are two — of the future quite there are two new _ of the future quite there are two new methods being developed here _ blumaan these two... and we have a set _ blumaan these two. .. and we have a set of— blumaan these two... and we have a set of receiving. - blumaan these two... and we have a set of receiving. with l have a set of receiving. with this, have a set of receiving. with this. we _

have a set of receiving. with this. we can _ have a set of receiving. with this, we can get _ have a set of receiving. with this, we can get extra - have a set of receiving. with this, we can get extra edgel have a set of receiving. with this, we can get extra edge of that— this, we can get extra edge of that we — this, we can get extra edge of that we would not otherwise be able to — that we would not otherwise be able to acquire.— able to acquire. esther and marcel's — able to acquire. esther and marcel's team _ able to acquire. esther and marcel's team is _ able to acquire. esther and marcel's team is using - able to acquire. esther and l marcel's team is using radar able to acquire. esther and - marcel's team is using radar to penetrate into the snow. different formations of ice crystals reflect the signals backin crystals reflect the signals back in different ways, revealing the general structure of the snow. after several weeks of taking measurements on snow cover across the glacier, the team will spend the next few months to discover whether radar can shape future studies. but from the ground, we can only see so far. to get a wider view, you need the second method and go even higher up in this will it is simply impossible to cover an entire area without

the alps. cover an entire area without the alps-— the alps. these are mix of o tical the alps. these are mix of optical photographs - the alps. these are mix of optical photographs that l the alps. these are mix of- optical photographs that would see with the neck he died, images and the infrared and some created using longer wavelength radio waves like marcel and esther�*s ground system. it marcel and esther's ground sstem. . . , marcel and esther's ground s stem. . . , . system. it creates a time series- — system. it creates a time series. satellites - system. it creates a time series. satellites pass i system. it creates a time i series. satellites pass over every couple of days. it's like a very slow motion video. we acquire this video and process it. in our case, we have a local snow depth pattern and we want to predict the help of the sequence and also the new observation. it sequence and also the new observation.— sequence and also the new observation. if the teams can im - rove observation. if the teams can improve the _ observation. if the teams can improve the methods, - observation. if the teams can improve the methods, they l observation. if the teams can l improve the methods, they can

for example, in greenland, we are looking for two glacier lates— are looking for two glacier lakes beneath the snow. they are giving _ lakes beneath the snow. they are giving us as an indicator of global— are giving us as an indicator of global warming. in some way, we have — of global warming. in some way, we have no— of global warming. in some way, we have no snow on top, and in winter. — we have no snow on top, and in winter. you _ we have no snow on top, and in winter, you have the accumulation of snow you can still— accumulation of snow you can still see _ accumulation of snow you can still see. in accumulation of snow you can still see. .,. , .., still see. in fact, these can be used — still see. in fact, these can be used even _ still see. in fact, these can be used even further - still see. in fact, these can| be used even further afield. still see. in fact, these can - be used even further afield. on venus, be used even further afield. on venus. we _ be used even further afield. on venus, we have a very strong atmospheric contribution and in order— atmospheric contribution and in order to — atmospheric contribution and in order to go through, we need longer— order to go through, we need longer wavelengths. venus famously suffered a runaway greenhouse effect.

while earth's effects will be anywhere near as bad, we have to fight its effects. adrian murray has been looking at a promising solution back on our world, orat promising solution back on our world, or at least i think it is. , ., ~' is. these martian like landscapes _ is. these martian like landscapes are - is. these martian like landscapes are found | is. these martian like l landscapes are found in iceland _ landscapes are found in iceland. it _ landscapes are found in iceland. it could - landscapes are found in iceland. it could almost landscapes are found in i iceland. it could almost be landscapes are found in - iceland. it could almost be a scene — iceland. it could almost be a scene from _ iceland. it could almost be a scene from science - iceland. it could almost be a scene from science fiction. i scene from science fiction. seemingly— scene from science fiction. seemingly in— scene from science fiction. seemingly in the _ scene from science fiction. seemingly in the middle i scene from science fiction. seemingly in the middle of| seemingly in the middle of nowhere, _ seemingly in the middle of nowhere, these _ seemingly in the middle of nowhere, these machinesl seemingly in the middle of. nowhere, these machines are guzzling — nowhere, these machines are guzzling up— nowhere, these machines are guzzling up carbon _ nowhere, these machines are guzzling up carbon dioxide . nowhere, these machines are guzzling up carbon dioxide — i nowhere, these machines are i guzzling up carbon dioxide — of global— guzzling up carbon dioxide — of global warming _ guzzling up carbon dioxide — of global warming gas. _ mammoth is the world's largest direct air capture and storage facility. what you see here are 12 of our collector containers. when the plant is fully operational, we'll actually have 72 around the plant. that will enable us to capture 36,000 tonnes of c02 every year.

it works like a giant vacuum. each of these units is the size of a shipping container and has a dozen powerfulfans sucking in the surrounding air. they pull in an olympic swimming pool�*s worth of air every a0 seconds. they pull in an olympic swimming pool�*s worth of air every a0 seconds. and then, inside, a filter separates the c02. in the atmosphere, its concentration is very dilute. capturing even small amounts requires lots of energy, and mammoth gets both power and hot water from the nearby geothermal plant. for us to do direct air capture effectively and efficiently, we want to make sure that we're using energy that has a low carbon footprint.

some would look at this and say, "hang on, where's the industry?" would it not be more efficient to have one of these next to a factory that's actually making the pollution? carbon dioxide tends tojust disperse and diffuse in the air. the effectiveness of direct air capture is not dependent on being located close to industrial emitters. ok, i'll let you show me where the c02 goes. that lowest line here, that's actually the c02 that's coming from those 12 containers outside. these two balloons are a really good visual representation of what, in total, one tonne of c02 looks like. this tower then works a bit like a sodastream, dissolving the pure c02 in water. from the top, we have water coming in, so, like a shower. it's sort of, at home, if you're making sparkling water, same idea. that fizzy water is sent

to these igloo—like domes. so here we have one of our injection wells. please come inside. this well is going 700m down into the underground here. the c02 and water is pumped deep into the basalt bedrock, where it reacts and turns to stone. so, you've got a couple of rocks there. exactly, yeah, i'm a geologist, so i brought rocks. this is a fresh basalt here, actually, from one of the last volcanic eruptions here in iceland. you can see there's a lot of porosity in here. here you can see there's a lot of these pores now filled with whitish specks. some of these contain the mineralised c02. and carbfix says that happens pretty quickly. we're not talking about millions or tens of thousands of years. around about 95% of the c02 was mineralised here within two years in the pilot project. this is incredibly fast, geologically speaking. mammoth is climeworks�* second commercial plant and almost ten times bigger than the last one, collecting 36,000 tonnes of c02 annually, about the same amount as taking 8,000 petrol cars off the road.

but it costs a whopping $1,000 to remove just one tonne. what do we mean by removing emissions? among its customers are microsoft, h&m and lego. worldwide, more plants like these are on the way, though they'll still only remove a fraction of what's needed. and despite calls to slash our emissions, the c02 we churn out continues to grow. do you think direct air capture can be an effective tool for removing carbon? we release about a0 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, so this won't make a dent into the big problem. but i think you should use all methods and methodologies to fight this problem. what's it going to take

to scale it up, bring costs down and make it really impactful? by the end of the decade, we want to be at a cost of capture of $300—aoo. technology improvements will help drive down costs. a second lever will be scale. the team says this is just the beginning. mammoth will soon be dwarfed by another, much bigger much bigger plant — project cypress project cypress in the united states — which will eventually capture a million tonnes of c02 each year. from mammoth to cypress, we're now looking to break that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of capture capacity a year. i really do believe direct air capture and other engineered solutions are going to be able to get us to the point that we need to to help fight climate change.

time for a look at this week's tech — time for a look at this week's tech news _ time for a look at this week's tech news. apple _ time for a look at this week's tech news. apple vision- time for a look at this week's tech news. apple vision proi time for a look at this week's i tech news. apple vision pro has arrived in — tech news. apple vision pro has arrived in the _ tech news. apple vision pro has arrived in the uk. _ tech news. apple vision pro has arrived in the uk.— arrived in the uk. combining virtual reality _ arrived in the uk. combining virtual reality and _ arrived in the uk. combining | virtual reality and augmented reality, the headset is controlled by eyes, hands and voice. it's also available in australia, canada, france and germany for the first time. it's a really fine... among other things, it's a really fine... among otherthings, it's it's a really fine... among other things, it's really amazing as a cinema experiments in a way i think is better than the best cinema. that doesn't mean you really want to watch... there is a huge amount of contact. be watch... there is a huge amount of contact-— of contact. be white he is continuing _ of contact. be white he is continuing to _ of contact. be white he is continuing to expand - of contact. be white he is - continuing to expand abroad, reaching a billion—dollar deal. it will be view id�*s second factory with the first big and

hungry. have you ever wondered where to recycle your rubbish? google has teamed up with swedish startup bauer. just point at the object you want to recycle and apple recognise it, and then tell you how best to dispose of it. —— the act recognise it. how is al going to affect the uk over the next ten years? while attendees at the future of britain conference, organised by the tony blair institute for global change, don't possess clairvoyant powers, they are very well placed as some of the best informed people in science, the arts and government to try and help answer that question. in a speech opening the event, former prime minister tony blair made it clear he believes ai is key to the uk's economic success. it will change everything, and positively, if we embrace it in a spirit of innovation,

not introspection. and new health secretary wes streeting says that al can play a role in the nhs. doubling the number of ct and mri scanners, and notjust more scanners, but ai enabled scanners, those are massive productivity gains. as founder and ceo of pioneering ai company google deepmind, sir demis hassabis has been developing ai for health care, scientific research and consumer use long before it was fashionable. it will transform everything, so it will be at least as big as the industrial revolution, possibly, you know, bigger, more like the advent of electricity or even fire. what does he think the uk's new labour government should do to make the best of artificial intelligence? i think it's a big opportunity, actually, for the country and the new government to embrace the economic opportunities that i think

are going to come with al and also the scientific possibilities. so, helping with health care, drug design, but also climate. now, the new labour government has said that it wants to be a green superpower, and we know that, at the moment, this technology, artificial intelligence, is very, very power hungry. yeah. so how is that relationship going to work out in the future, do you think? i think, in the short term, that's correct, there's a lot of power needed to scale these systems up. but most of the large companies, including google, have committed to green power usage and net—zero targets. the types of systems we're building, we're training on these large data centres will have enormous implications and good use cases for climate. so, things like getting more efficiency out of existing infrastructure like power grids. also, we're applying ai itself to save power in the data centres. so, i think, in the end, that what these ai systems do, you know, will save energy and power far outweighing

what they're currently using. people worry about their jobs and job security. how will ai affect employment? ithink, like previous big, uh... ..sort of technological revolutions, like the internet or mobile, i think it's going to also create many newjobs, new types ofjobs that we can barely imagine today. there's a lot of american investment, there's a lot of investment going on in china. where does the uk sit? yeah, i think if you look at it, of course, there's the us and there's china, the kind of two superpowers — they have the most investment, the most research. but i think, if you look at the next tier, the uk is right in there in the mix. so, partly to get the economic gains and the prosperity from that, but also to influence how it goes on the world stage. 0k, crystal—ball moment — how far away do you think we are from artificial general intelligence? so, agi is a term that we sometimes use in the field to describe roughly human—level ai systems that are capable of general solutions to problems, a bit like the human

mind can do. and i think we're, you know, maybe... i wouldn't be surprised if it was sort of in the next decade, so perhaps a 50% chance in the next decade. sir demis hassabis, thank you very much indeed. thank you. life is brilliant! it sprung up in almost every part of the planet, in every shape imaginable — and many that aren't. there's a lot of life out there still left to be discovered and described. and that's a fact — most of the world's flora and fauna are as yet undocumented. but that also means that we don't know what effects we humans and our ever—expanding civilisation are having on most of the world's species. if we start to lose this diversity, you know, and things can't be moved around and they can't adapt, then we sort of have a house of cards that's falling apart. and if we lose the key

species in that, then we know we won't be able to restore our ecosystems. cue xprize rainforest — a five—year competition challenging teams from around the world to develop tech to find out what lives where. first prize? $5 million. the mission — to design robots that can autonomously collect environmental dna, edna, from an area of rainforest and also to develop new techniques to analyse the biodiversity contained within that data. environmental dna, simply dna that's being shed off of every species. and our technologies are advanced enough now that we can just take a water sample or an air sample or a surface sample, and from that we can describe what species are living in a place. biodivx from eth university in zurich is one of the teams that

made it through the semifinals in singapore and have been practising for the finals in the amazon rainforest in brazil. and today i've come to zurich to meet their autonomous drone. actually, what's important here is what's hanging underneath the drone. that is a probe on about 50m of wire that can be lowered all the way through the vegetation down to the ground, swabbing dna samples as it goes. the swab is a simple piece of lint—free cloth that drags against the vegetation. and in case you're wondering why staying above the rainforest and swabbing down through it is the best idea, well, you've obviously never been to a rainforest before. they are pretty tough conditions, so rainforests have very extreme weather conditions, so it can be very hot, it can be very humid, so that's quite of a challenge

for the sensor on board of the drone, for the camera. it can be challenging to detect obstacles, and then what is very problematic is to fly eventually inside the rainforest. so, this is where it's, you know, extremely cluttered environment with many obstacles and so on — and so the way we solve this problem is to stay above the canopy, butjust having the probe that goes inside the canopy. so, in this way we are safely up, but we can still collect data from inside the vegetation where things are interesting and important to be monitored. the drone uses 3d scans of the canopy to work out how close is too close to the tree tops, and if the probe gets stuck, the drone is programmed to first wiggle it up and down, then to give it a sharp tug, and if all else fails, to cut the cord and return to base. but what's special about this probe is that it allows us to access the canopy, which is very hard. that's 20, 30, even a0m off the ground, and that's a place

where we don't know very much about biodiversity. and so the ability to go in and non—invasively sort of swab this space and collect that dna is amazing, because now our other methods are to put up a poisonous gas and fog the tree and all the insects fall out dead. this is maybe not what we want to do when we just want to know something's there. yeah, you're decreasing the biodiversity right there and then, aren't you, right? yeah. i'm being swabbed! there's a lot of chemicals in this hair! that's going to skew the sample! each team has 2a hours to collect as much edna as possible from one square kilometre of rainforest and then a8 hours to analyse the samples — and given that most of the millions of these samples collected will still be unidentifiable, teams are also scored on how well they can communicate the diversity of life that they find. and for biodivx, that includes

turning dna into music. and so i got fascinated by this process of being able to communicate what it is that we're finding, because, as i said, most of the things, we don't even know what species it is, we can't even put it in our tree of life. and so how do you communicate to people about things that they can't see and they don't know are there and we have no name for it? well, if you give it a soundtrack, then it's a wonderful way to allow people to connect with biodiversity when we don't have, you know, other means of communicating about what it is. is it a case, then, that in ten years' time, you might revisit the same forest and the soundtrack might have changed... yeah. ..and there's a danger it might have got more reduced in its variety? mm—hm, yeah. i have this sort of dream that, you know, if species are there in a place, and they've all been evolving and interacting and they're in harmony, that the music from all of them together should sound good, like a symphony, right? and if it's a system that's...

you know, maybe the habitat�*s been degraded or an invasive ..you know, maybe the habitat�*s been degraded or an invasive species has come in, you would be able to hear that distortion because it would no longer be in harmony. the dna sequences determine the order of the notes, but then a human composer arranges the track into something that sounds good and brings the variety of life to life. and in fact, this music you're hearing right now? well, it's composed from the dna of a honeybee, a bioluminescent snail and the silver timon tree. calm electronic music plays the xprize rainforest finals happen this summer in the amazon. and that's it for our dive into nature. hope you've enjoyed it, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

hello there.

apart from the fireworks, it was a quiet end to october and it's been a quiet start to november. and essentially we've got more of the same this weekend. more cloudy skies and more mild air as well. now there was some sunshine to the east of the pennines on friday. north yorkshire the place to be with about six hours of sunshine. but the breaks in the cloud that we've had here have been filling in and underneath that area of high pressure we do have cloudy skies that weather front steering a little rain up towards shetland. now with that blanket of cloud around these

are the temperatures first thing on saturday and a mild ten degrees typically. and the temperatures will have lifted in the north east of scotland by the morning. but it's going to be quite a grey and gloomy start, some mist and some hill fog that may tend to lift any drizzle in scotland, and some parts of england should tend to ease away. a lot of places will be dry, but stay cloudy could be a bit of sunshine in north east scotland, perhaps later in the far south east of england. it is going to be a mild day again, temperatures not rising very much, but up to 13, ia, maybe 15 degrees and a bit milder than it was on friday in northern scotland. those weather fronts are being kept at bay, so the rain is being kept at bay even though the high pressure centre is drifting away and it's allowing a gentle southeasterly breeze to come in for the second half of the weekend, that could introduce some slightly drier air.

so if the cloud does break in scotland and eastern parts of england, it'll be a chilly start to sunday. many places, though on sunday will again be cloudy. there could still be some mist and fog around in the morning, but we may see a bit more sunshine in scotland, perhaps developing in northern england, north wales even maybe into the midlands towards east anglia as well eventually. but it is going to be a mild day wherever you are. temperatures typically 13 or ia degrees. now as we head into the beginning of next week and mist and fog is going to be more widespread across england and wales on monday morning, and tuesday morning could extend its way into scotland as well. and that mist and fog is going to be very slow to lift. many places will still be cloudy and under the mist and fog it is going to feel quite chilly as well. but later on in the week we'll have less of that stronger southerly breeze, probably lifting the temperatures a bit, and these areas of low pressure will keep the rain at bay. so again, it's

still looking dry.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the us presidential candidates are taking their campaigns to the midwest, with four days to go until election day. the us orders additional fighterjets and navy warships to the middle east in a warning to iran. and in spain, more than 200 people have died in devastating floods. the death toll is expected to rise as the search and rescue operations continue.

hi there. i'm azadeh moshiri. welcome to the programme. just four days to election day. the focus on friday is on swing states in the midwest, ones that candidate need and could win. kamala harris and donald trump are both visiting wisconsin. in 2020, joe biden took the state by a narrow margin. and once again, the polls are tight. a short while ago, the vice president appeared at a rally in appleton — the second of three stops in the state today. and at the top of my list is bringing down the cost of living for you. that will be my focus every single day as president. including, i will give a middle class tax tax cut to over 100 million americans. we will enact the first ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries. and fight to make sure that hard—working americans can actually afford a place to live.