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Carbon capture 'operational by mid 2020s'

Ministers give a timeline for the UK's first carbon capture and storage project, as research funding is announced.

Chasing the Moon | American Experience | PBS

Nearly 50 years ago, we took one small step. In 2019, join American Experience and PBS to relive the journey that defined a generation.

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

Scientist William Rankine was born - On this day in history

Scottish scientist William Rankine was born on 5 July 1820.

John

Scotland's Signature Role in America's Independence....
Most Americans take advantage of the Fourth of July holiday to enjoy a long weekend at the beach or in the mountains, munching on burgers and hot dogs or taking in a parade and fireworks display. They will tell you that the last thing on their minds is the significance behind this day in US history.
It has been written often – even on this group page – that America owes a hefty dose of gratitude to the many Scottish ancestors who helped mould the new nation.
One of the leaders of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry, was of Scots ancestry. Another was Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury.
There are two other people, however, who deserve special mention on this day of celebration. The only Scottish-born signers of the Declaration of Independence - a clergyman and a noted legal scholar – came to America in the mid-18th century and played significant roles in shaping two of the country's key institutions.
Rev John Witherspoon was the only ordained clergyman to sign the historic document. He was born at Gifford, East Lothian, and graduated from Edinburgh University.
Witherspoon became a parish minister in Beith, Ayrshire, then Paisley, Renfrewshire, before emigrating to the colonies in 1768. Witherspoon is credited with raising the profile of one of the great American schools of higher learning.
He became the sixth president of the College of New Jersey – now known as Princeton University, an icon of Ivy League education. At first he declined the job because his wife was reluctant to join him from Scotland, but a second offer persuaded the couple.
While Thomas Jefferson is credited with imploring a separation between church and government activities, there is no doubt Witherspoon's ideas from his Scottish Enlightenment days helped to influence a climate for religious pluralism in the US.
Among his students at Princeton were a future president and vice-president, as well as 60 members of the US Congress and three Supreme Court justices.
The other Scottish signatory was quite familiar with the High Court . James Wilson was born near St Andrews, Fife, where he attended university. He also went to university in Edinburgh and Glasgow but, surprisingly, never graduated.
He left for America in 1765 and obtained a job at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania, another Ivy League school), where he would receive an honorary degree.
Wilson was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1767 and most notably wrote a legal opinion saying that, unless Americans had representation in the British parliament, London had no authority over them.
This argument – no taxation without representation – was the basis for the colonies to break away from Britain. he gave a speech that, in essence, discussed the principle of Judicial Review, the system in America in which laws can be checked against the constitution.
This later evolved into the Supreme Court, of which Wilson himself became as associate justice. Wilson, a strict legal man, nearly did not sign the declaration because the people he represented were divided over the issues.
However, once he agreed to sign, it broke the deadlock in the Pennsylvania delegation. The country's birth was declared, and 229 years later Scotland's contribution to its start is remembered.
Scots, who migrated in large numbers to the New World, became responsible for many of the political ideals that came to be central to the founding of the United States (formerly the Thirteen Colonies). Indeed, George Bush recently paid tribute to this legacy when he signed in 2008 a Presidential Proclamation recognising "Tartan Day", a day devoted to celebrating Scottish heritage. The document states: "many of our country’s most cherished customs and ideals first grew to maturity on Scotland’s soil. The Declaration of Arbroath, the Scottish Declaration of Independence signed in 1320, embodied the Scots’ strong dedication to liberty, and the Scots brought that tradition of freedom with them to the New World"
Although some, like Bush, trace Scottish influence on American politics to the 1320 Declaration, it was the Scottish Enlightenment that was the major Scottish influence on revolutionary proceedings in the late 1700s. Scottish thinkers had a telling impact on the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson, himself of Scottish descent, studied under the tuition of Scottish professor, Dr William Small. Small helped to transport Scottish Enlightenment philosophy and ideas to America; his influence was such that Jefferson felt that to study under him was, quote "my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life."
Reid, Hutcheson, Hume, they all figured in Jefferson's developing political beliefs. Then there was the clergyman John Witherspoon and the economist Adam Smith, both Scots whose ideas "lit the fires of revolution" in America, as historian Neil Oliver puts it. Both men, he says, were products of the Scottish Enlightenment and both had given the world a new moral philosophy by which to live. Indeed, On March 9, 1776, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (commonly referred to as simply "The Wealth of Nations") was first published. Smith, a Scottish philosopher by trade, wrote the book to upend the mercantilist system.
The relationship was profoundly important to both sides. However, it wasn't like the Americans one-sidedly drew from these ideas with no reciprocity; Adam Smith gave Benjamin Franklin chapters of "˜The Wealth of Nations" as he wrote them, which they would debate and revise in tandem.
All in all, as many as nineteen of the fifty-six delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 came from Scotland or, like Jefferson, had ancestors there. And, even though many Scottish troops fought on the side of the British Royalists, the Scots undoubtedly had a crucial impact on the American independence movement. The American historian Daniel Walker Howe puts it so: "The Scots spread a rich intellectual table from which the Americans could pick and choose and feast," and it all culminated in the events that are still celebrated on 4th July.
But history has lived ans was now left in the past, and we the still proud Scots, raise a glass to our American cousins and friends, wish you well and say "dea-shláinte a thabhairt duit"
Thursday 4th July 2019