Even a small cloud can weigh as much as four tonnes – but gravity, chemistry and temperature keep them floating in the sky.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
Despite promises, it's hard to deny that the UK's standards on agriculture, air pollution, and climate change are under threat.
Preliminary results of a study have shown microplastics have reached in a newly revealed Antarctic environment.
Social farms provide health, social and educational care to disadvantaged young people.
Appearance of bananas in Sri Lanka 6,000 years ago points to prehistoric food globalisation.
Sounds too cheap to be true? It probably is.
New findings from the Chagos Islands are a perfect parable for the Anthropocene.
Under the terms of the current treaty all commercial mining is forbidden, but rumblings of discontent are stirring beneath the ice.
The heatwave is unlikely to cause the price hikes of 1976 for a number of reasons.
Why home owners shouldn't panic over knotweed on their property.
The Earth is losing more and more biodiversity every day, and we should all be worried
Why do whale sharks come together at just 20 locations around the globe?
Scientists have created embryos from the eggs of southern white rhino and sperm from their northern counterparts.
How will important habitats recover from the wildfires which been blazing through moorland in northern England?
As ponds dry up, so too does our connection to nature.
We have long wondered why Earth has stayed habitable enough for life to evolve over billions of years.
Conservationists scaled the sheer cliffs of Mount Lico as part of wider effort to build the case for the protection of Mozambique's mountain forests.
Time to rethink orangutan conservation, now we know that our red relatives are actually very adaptable.
The dry arid conditions that come with a high CO2 atmospheres are the perfect tinderbox for wildfires.
London should be one giant pigeon cemetery, but you rarely see the bodies.
Our research on the oil cartel shows, that it really matters whether OPEC members 'failed to agree' or 'agreed to disagree'.
It's hard to measure the value of a tree, but scientists equipped with lasers have come one step closer.
Unlocking the genetic code of certain grasses could help allergy sufferers.
Beluga sturgeon found their migration route blocked by Europe's largest hydroelectric dam.
We used 11 different satellite missions to track Antarctica’s contribution to rising sea levels.
Despite them living for up to 2,500 years, researchers have discovered several baobab trees in Africa have died. Aida Cuni Sanchez on why these trees have a special place in our world.
Illegal dumping is costing governments millions – but satellite technology could help put a stop to it.
Microplastics in seafood are well recorded but there are many other sources.
More homes, more homes, more homes. What about less elbow room instead?
Not the sort of amount you'd want to lose down the back of the sofa.
The bird faces a wave of challenges – from climate change to human hunters.
Marx believed that exploitation of workers and of nature went hand-in-hand.
Pyroclastic flows are biggest danger in these eruptions.
Children will be responsible for the future protection of our fragile planet. Their knowledge and engagement are critical.
The Environmental Justice Atlas highlights the most pertinent findings of environmental conflicts facing the world today.
Proposed reforms to the common agriculture policy (CAP) do not go far enough.
The whole island has been in common ownership for centuries, but foreign investors want individual property rights.
Two separate studies have concluded that fracking was the likely cause of a fault line rupture, precipitating the 5.5 earthquake.
Serbia was pumping out lead pollution while Britain was still in the stone age.
With less snow on the ground, weasels that turn white for winter are easier prey for foxes and wolves.
Climate change plus population growth means the city has to act soon.
Two air pollution experts analyse the government's plan.
At Kīlauea in Hawai'i, a recent volcanic eruption has created some of the most spectacular sights in nature. But also danger for those around it.
Richer countries import products but not the emissions used to make them.
The world's national parks cover an area bigger than South America. But a new survey finds that one-third of this area is subject to pressure from human developments, potentially putting wildlife at risk.
Many sacred sites such as temples, and churchyards are havens for biodiversity.
The council has considered terrorism, nuclear weapons and international crime. But it has largely ignored the climate.
Meet the first team trying to understand the secrets of Mount Everest's glaciers.
But often these new 'forests' have only grown thanks to increased deforestation abroad.
Smart technology can help the environment, preserve biodiversity and protect sensitive areas, such as national parks.
A reserve near Amsterdam lost many wild cattle and deer over the tough winter, leading to public protests. Yet this was a failure of Dutch politics rather than rewilding itself.
I analysed 15 million words written by major oil companies and found their usage of 'climate change' peaked a decade ago.
How to cut down on toxic chemicals found in common household products.
The wrecks of the German WWI fleet are home to an abundance of biodiverse marine life, now under threat from climate change.
As companies and governments attempt to intensify extraction, cultural resistance offers a space for imagining alternative futures.
The oak processionary moth established itself in the UK a decade ago, ahead of the parasitoids that would normally keep its numbers in check.
We cannot spot every shark in the ocean. But we can detect their 'environmental DNA'.
Politicians and economists call for emissions cuts while also embracing free trade – they can't have it both ways.
Some scientists want to replace 'ecosystem services' with ‘Nature’s Contributions to People’.
Undrinkable drinking water is just one example of how blockades and war have permeated an entire ecosystem.
The world needs more affordable housing with a lower environmental impact. The stabilised supermud brick could be the answer.
How to move beyond the warm words about tackling urban heat islands to doing something about them.
New director-general Helen McGrady is looking to cities for a 'radical' future at the National Trust.
It's nearly impossible to kill, so we need to start working with Japanese knotweed to control it.
There's plenty of evidence that modern swill-feeding would be safe, sustainable, and popular.
We looked at ten countries in East Africa and found poverty and politics were much more important drivers of conflict and displacement than climate change.
Indigenous communities lived in the Amazon for thousands of years without chopping down their forests.
New research finds more CO₂ can actually make most plants smaller in the long-term - but the story for crops isn't so simple.
Yet plastic itself isn't inherently evil as sometimes the environmental benefits outweigh the costs. So how to tell good plastic from bad?
Ants have an incredible instinct to help their comrades.
A shipping industry summit is exploring routes to a greener future.
Tides are the largest they have been for 250m years.
How we showed the Atlantic circulation system is its weakest for 1,600 years.
It's a policy to help the environment, so where's the evidence to support it?
Honeybees are responsible for only a third of crop pollination in Britain.
Despite various exceptions, the UK's proposed ivory ban will be among the toughest in the world.
Governments and energy firms will find it hard to generate the necessary public acceptance for such a controversial technology.
A mythical Amazonia of lost tribes or lost cities is easy to challenge on a factual basis, but such objections appear rather feeble in the face of the power of cliché.
The technology underlying Bitcoin is starting to spread its wings.
Rhino resurrection is tempting, but if humans cannot save a species in nature, what future for animals that we manufacture?
Cleaning up the oceans will require much better waste management in poorer countries.
The pioneering legislation is ten years old – and the latest science means it now does not go far enough.
East Africa Rift is undergoing a process that will see the Horn of Africa split from the rest of the continent.
Daylight savings time means our most active periods are better aligned with daylight hours.
Polar regions
The Antarctic Treaty was signed 58 years ago today, protecting the continent for peace and science.
The ice sheet is melting and permafrost is thawing. What's happening in Greenland will speed up climate change across the world.
Enormous Antarctic icebergs are a rare but natural occurrence.
Podcast: The Anthill
Research and Expert Database
Editors’ Picks
Research can be spun, within hours, into a story of past failure. In fact, it's a case of continuous improvement.
Microbeads from cosmetics are just a drop in the ocean. Other microplastics are more pervasive and just as dangerous.
Few fish can survive in these freezing waters, so invertebrates are the dominant predators.
Recent archaeological evidence shows the remote islanders didn't commit 'ecocide' after all.
Autonomous vehicles have many benefits, but they may be bad news for nature conservation.
To deliver climate justice we must focus on vulnerable people not countries.
Offshore wind is an expensive business to get into.
In defence of 'cryptozoologists': we have a lot to learn from their curiosity and sense of wonder.
More than 100 volcanoes lie beneath the continent's ice sheet.
The planet has seen five 'mass extinctions' over the past half billion years, but each was followed by an explosion in biodiversity.
Events
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ALBERT WOLTERS PUBLIC LECTURE WITH PROFESSOR ELIZABETH LOFTUS — University of Reading
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KIDNAP@20: The Art of Incarceration — University of Manchester
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Making the modern world: England's first civic university (Heritage Tour) — University of Manchester
How we are different
10 reasons
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- Prehistoric people started to spread domesticated bananas across the world 6,000 years ago
- Seven spectacular weather events – and what causes them
- Rip currents are a natural hazard along coasts – here’s how to spot them
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