How intelligent are animals? Despite centuries of effort by philosophers, psychologists and biologists, the question remains unanswered. We are inclined to tackle this question using a top-down approach…
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Environment – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 4326 - 4350 of 4445 articles
The frequency of large wildfires in the western US have been increasing over the past several decades. The Rim Fire, currently threatening the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park, is an example…
While the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that became all the rage some time ago initially had worthwhile aims, it is now more commonly used by corporations to out-worthy their competitors…
Maritime engineering is no exception in worldwide effort to save energy and protect the environment. In 2008 the International Maritime Organization, a UN agency, set up its Marine Environmental Protection…
In our society, not many people are lucky enough to have an ideal boss who they would want to follow faithfully for the rest of their lives. Many might even find their boss selfish and arrogant or complain…
Leave a glass with nutrient-rich pond water on a sunny window sill and within a day or two it will have turned a very vibrant, verdant green. This apparent alchemy has less to do with chemistry and more…
On the surface it appears that the City of Detroit is facing a hopeless future. A closer look suggests that the picture is not so bleak. The alarm has been raised by the State of Michigan placing the city…
Proposed changes to the Dangerous Dogs Act are based on the assumption that Britain faces a growing threat posed by dangerous dogs and their owners. The proposal is to impose harsher penalties. Before…
Although it is far from the power stations, roads and flight paths of the populated world, the Southern Ocean is already responding to climate change. Average sea temperatures in some parts have risen…
Researchers in Aberdeen and the RSPB have set up a project that enables Scottish birds to write their own blogs. Readers will be able to track the daily lives of red kites as they travel around the Scottish…
The drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of wells for oil or gas is a well-established technique and requires large quantities of water. During the initial drilling of the well, water is needed…
Contaminated during the surrounding area’s history of mining, the River Hayle in Cornwall contains metals including copper, zinc, nickel and cadmium at levels that can kill brown trout, a particularly…
The Energy Technologies Institute recently reported that without carbon capture and storage (CCS), the cost of reaching the UK’s climate change targets will double from around £30 billion per year in 2050…
Sinkholes seem to be popping up everywhere this year. March saw the tragic death of Jeff Bush in Seffner, Florida, when his bedroom collapsed into a sinkhole below his house. The same month saw the disappearance…
The disposal of computers and other electronic and electrical goods, e-waste, is a growing global problem. In 2011, the world threw away 41.5m tonnes of electrical equipment, and this is expected to rise…
More than half the world’s population now lives in cities or urban areas, which means our vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is tied up with cities’ ability to cope. Responsible for more than…
The catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform allowed five million barrels of oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico between April and July 2010. Since then, remediation and restoration…
A bonfire of red tape that would “revitalise our high streets” - that’s what planning minister Nick Boles has promised. This might have been drawn from Mary Portas’s 2011 report on the future of the high…
The launch of the lab-bred “meat” in London was a masterly act of timing, theatre, and media management. But now that rabbit is out of the hat, there are questions that need to be asked, and answers that…
There’s no doubt the slow loris is a cuddly cutie from central casting. It is an animal that could easily have been dreamed up in the studios of the Disney Corporation of the 1950s and I’m afraid that…
Even for a relatively seasoned observer of the antics of government, the recent performance over fracking, crowned by the prime minister’s comments about fracking his backyard, has been a wonder to behold…
If Earth were like a human body, large animals might be its arteries, moving nutrients from where they’re abundant to where they’re needed. Currently the planet has large regions where life is limited…
Each summer, for several years in a row, a tabloid would send me a picture of a shark fin photographed off Cornwall and ask if it was a Great White. “No,” I would patiently explain, “it is a harmless basking…
The precise locations and date of the imminent badger cull are secret, but the aim is clear: to see if marksmen can shoot and kill badgers humanely and efficiently. If so, a wider cull will follow. For…
Small numbers can imply big things. Global sea level rose by a little less than 0.2 metres during the 20th century – mainly in response to the 0.8 °C of warming humans have caused through greenhouse gas…