Pixel-mixer/Pixabay
In Switzerland, specific and often costly environmental policies are put to test through direct democracy.
Swartberg House in the Karoo, designed by Jennifer Beningfield, Open Studio.
Richard Davies
Buildings, thinkers, books, films and works of art can ask central questions about how to live on this planet and its consequences.
Detail from Shenae & Jade, 2005, Petrina Hicks.
Courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer gallery, Melbourne and Michael Reid, Sydney
A new exhibition exploring the relationship between birds and humans is variously gaudy, delightful and disturbing. We sent two ecologists along to review the show.
In peril: a male saiga antelope.
BBC NHU/Chadden Hunter
How science is solving one of the natural world’s greatest and most tragic puzzles.
Researchers have found that dragonflies have become on average lighter-colored over the past half-century in response to higher temperatures.
norio-nakayama/flickr
Study shows the footprint of climate change is already vast and that species are trying to adapt to rising temperatures.
Spines don’t stop animals from browsing, but slow down their feeding rates.
Gareth Hempson
Fire has been viewed as the main protagonist in creating Africa’s iconic savannas. However, new research shows that browsing animals created savannas millions of years before fire became important.
A yellow-shouldered grosbeak tucks into a katydid (bush cricket) lunch high in the rainforest canopy.
Alexander C. Lees
Bird diversity may be the secret to forest resilience.
jurij / shutterstock
One species of bat is able to switch from hearing to echolocation when there’s too much noise, according to new research.
Soil needs the right structure and microbial ecology to help your plants grow.
Shutterstock
Soil is more than just dirt. It’s a complex ecosystem and if it’s healthy your plants will be happier.
China’s Jiangxi mountains: now just an asset?
Shutterstock
Nature conservation is becoming another way to make money.
Public park in Manhattan, home to a rat population with over 100 visible burrows.
Dr. Michael H. Parsons
Rats foul our food, spread disease and damage property, but we know very little about them. A biologist explains how he tracks wild rats in New York City, and what he’s learned about them so far.
Unnatural world? We need to look beneath the surface.
Shutterstock
Restoring the North Sea to a ‘pristine’ state isn’t necessarily the best thing for its eco-systems.
Some midge species can act as an early warning system.
simak
Populations of certain species collapse long before a wider ecological disaster, says new research.
Azteca ants, unsung heroes of coffee pest control.
Kate Mathis
Azteca ants are self-appointed protectors of coffee plants on Mexican plantations. But they have a lot to contend with from other insects.
Without electrons there would be no electron microscopes, and therefore no close-ups like this image of pollen.
Heiti Paves/Wikimedia Commons
The advent of electron microscopy and nanobiology has moved our appreciation of the living world to unprecedentedly small scales – with entirely new benefits and potential pitfalls to consider.
School of thought.
Shutterstock
Understanding this will boost conservation efforts.
Fleas get a free ride - and there’s not much in it for the dog.
Kristian Niemi/Flickr
Do you know your parasites from your gut commensals? Read this and you will.
Fluorescent image of the coral Pocillopora damicornis . The field of view is approximately 4.1 x 3.4 mm.
Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD
Could this new technology do for the microscopic marine world what the first telescopes did for the heavens above?
A plague, or just an artefact?
Jacob Gruythuysen
How flawed citation practices can perpetuate scientific ideas even before they’ve been fully established as true.
Mark Mallott / Rothamsted Research
A ‘Biblical swarm’ of ‘super-moths’ from continental Europe is heading to the UK.