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Washington state lawmakers vote to phase out gasoline cars by 2030

The bill awaits Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature.


Washington state lawmakers have passed a measure that would phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles starting in 2030. The Clean Cars 2030 initiative passed Thursday as an amendment to a bill that requires state utilities prepare for an electric-vehicle future. The bill now awaits Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature.

That’s five years earlier than planned gas vehicle bans in California and Massachusetts, and the first ban on gas cars passed by legislators, rather than by an executive order. The bill passed Washington’s Senate by a vote of 25–23 and a vote of 54–43 in the House. The bill bans the sale, purchase, or registration of non-EVs from model year 2030 and later, and would include vehicles bought in another state and brought into Washington state.

The Clean Cars 2030 measure depends on the state approving a tax on vehicle miles traveled, which would help pay for new transportation infrastructure in the state, according to the bill.

Programmable Bacteria: Nature’s Most Powerful Tool

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Credits:
Narrator: Stephanie Sammann.
Writer: Ashleen Knutsen.
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (https://www.behance.net/dylanhennessy1)
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (https://kpatart.com/illustrations)
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Producer: Brian McManus (https://www.youtube.com/c/realengineering)

Imagery courtesy of Getty Images.

This Flying ‘Monkeydactyl’ Is The Only Known Pterosaur With Opposed Thumbs

A small, flying reptile glides beneath the canopy of an ancient forest, scouring the trees for tasty bugs. She spots a cicada buzzing in the boughs of a ginkgo tree, then swoops down to snatch it up in her beak. The bug flees; the reptile follows, grasping swiftly along the branches with her sharp claws until – snatch! – she grabs the bug with her opposable thumbs.

It’s not your typical picture of a pterosaur – those iconic, winged reptiles that lived through most of the Mesozoic era (from about 252 million to 66 million years ago).

But according to a new study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology, a newly-described Jurassic pterosaur appears to have lived its life among the trees, hunting, and climbing with the help of its two opposable thumbs – one on each of its three-fingered hands.

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