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+35 +1
Galactic gold rush: the tech companies aiming to make space mining a reality
Asteroids and the moon contain vast quantities of natural resources, including water, that could be worth billions and fuel a new phase of space exploration
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+38 +1
Rio Tinto’s plan to use drones to monitor workers’ private lives
Privacy campaigners express alarm after company contracts Sodexo to ‘capture individual insights’ from staff in Western Australian mining camps. By Max Opray.
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+25 +1
The gold mine at the end of the world
Photographer Elena Chernyshova spent 10 days at the Kupol gold mine in northeast Russia to see the extremes workers endure to feed our demand for precious metals. Gold is still one of our most precious resources. It is an essential component in everything from smartphones to the latest diagnostic kits for malaria and HIV. Which means we need to go to great extremes to keep up with demand. Isolated in the frozen wastes of eastern Siberia, where temperatures can plummet to -50°C (-45F), the Kupol gold mine is one of the toughest places in the world to extract the ore.
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+38 +1
As Groundwater Dwindles, a Global Food Shock Looms
By mid-century, says a new study, some of the biggest grain-producing regions could run dry. By Cheryl Katz.
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+30 +1
Sand mining: the global environmental crisis you’ve never heard of
From Cambodia to California, industrial-scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die, local trade to wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly valuable resource is unlikely to let up
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+30 +1
Bolivia’s Desperate Miners Are Doing Desperate Things—Like Murder
Everyone knows who killed Rodolfo Illanes. So why is his death such a mystery? By Monte Reel.
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+17 +1
Trump order on conflict minerals would send warlords carte blanche signal, say critics
A battle involving some of America’s most powerful men and some of Africa’s most powerful warlords is being waged in Donald Trump’s White House. At stake are billions of dollars, child labour, sexual violence and the precious minerals that make our tech gadgets work.
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+25 +1
In Anaconda, Montana, History Repeats Itself
The more things change… By Ed Kemmick.
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+18 +1
True cost of Philippines gold-mining: Poverty-stricken workers risk health for precious metal
Miners sift through hundreds of kilos of sand and clay, gathering roughly a quarter of a gram of gold dust. By Alex Wheeler.
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+19 +1
Isro plans to mine energy from Moon by 2030 to help meet India needs
From launching 104 satellites at one go, enabling commercial roll out of lithium-ion batteries, to taking the lead in providing energy security, the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is firing on all cylinders. Apart from planning for manned missions to Moon, Mars and even aircraft development, Isro is now working on a plan to help India meet its energy needs from the Moon by 2030.
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+29 +1
This Is the Best Dinosaur Fossil of Its Kind Ever Found
The 110 million-year-old fossil of a nodosaur preserves the animal’s armor, skin, and what may have been its final meal. By Michael Greshko.
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+23 +1
̶T̶h̶e̶ [Another] place in America where (almost) no one drinks their tap water
Local officials in eastern Kentucky’s Martin County insist the water is fine, despite repeated violations of EPA limits. But residents have been relying on bottled water for years. By Story Hinckley.
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+12 +1
The world’s most toxic town: the terrible legacy of Zambia’s lead mines
Almost a century of lead mining and smelting has poisoned generations of children in the Copperbelt town of Kabwe in Zambia. By Damian Carrington.
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+21 +1
Grand Canyon at risk as Arizona officials ask Trump to end uranium mining ban
Powerful regional officials to ask administration to end 20-year ban, saying it is unlawful and inhibits economic opportunity. By Joanna Walters.
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+19 +1
Politically charged: do you know where your batteries come from?
We need to think about the raw materials of batteries -- where they come from and their environmental cost.
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+15 +1
Miner Deaths Increase Amid Low Coal Employment
A rash of fatal coal mining accidents in the Ohio Valley region pushed the nation’s total number of mining deaths to a level not seen since 2015, sparking concern among safety advocates. Already this year 12 miners have died on the job in the U.S., compared with eight fatalities in all of 2016. Two miners were killed in Kentucky and six in West Virginia.
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+13 +1
Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner. Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
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+17 +1
Precious Gems Bear Messages From Earth’s Molten Heart
We may covet gemstones for their beauty, but their real value lies in what they tell scientists about the extreme forces at work deep underground.
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+16 +1
Fury at Chinese company after deadly cave-in at Cameroon mine
Follow international news through our Observers' amateur images and eyewitness testimony. All the content is verified and explained by our journalists.
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+26 +1
Study Uncovers Startling Number of Black Lung Cases in Coal Miners
Miners are contracting the disease with striking frequency and at younger ages than ever before. By Marissa Fessenden.
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