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Nurturing everything from bacteria and fungi to worms is seen as essential to helping minimise use of chemicals and machinery
Nick Padwick hunches over a microscope, examining a sample of compost he has made on his Norfolk farm. “Look at that bad boy! That’s a bacteria-feeding nematode!” he exclaims. “Stunning fungal hyphae.”
Padwick, the farm manager at Wild Ken Hill since 2018, is part of a growing movement of farmers taking a deep interest in the microscopic life forms upon which their livelihoods depend. Under this approach to regenerative farming, nurturing diverse soil communities – from bacteria and fungi to microscopic animals and worms – is seen as an essential prerequisite for growing healthy foods with minimal or no use of agrochemicals or soil-damaging machinery.
Use microscopy to identify missing or imbalanced soil organisms.
Create nutrient-rich compost from farm waste, such as straw and wood chips.
Put this compost in mesh bags and steep them in water, like giant teabags, to make extracts that can reintroduce beneficial microbes to depleted soils.
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Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
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With rising temperatures causing chaos worldwide, what does it mean to be a tourist in a world on fire?
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“Where shall we go on holiday?” would not, ideally, be a stressful question.
But the world in 2025 is far from ideal, and summer breaks in Europe and North America are no exception. Holiday hotspots are being ravaged by heat, fire, floods and drought as fossil fuel pollution warps the climate – and travelling to reach them in planes or on cruise ships spews far more planet-heating gas than anything else you and I are likely to do. (Rocket enthusiasts such as Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos, I assume, have not yet subscribed to Down to Earth.)
‘We cannot do it the way our fathers did’: farmers across Europe struggle to adapt to the climate crisis
‘Unlike any other kind of fear’: wildfires leave their mark across Spain
Europe scorched by wildfires – pictures from space
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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Duration of torrential rains from Typhoon Kajiki lead to elevated landslide risk across Laos and Thailand
Typhoon Kajiki steadily intensified over the South China Sea last weekend into a category 2 storm with sustained wind speeds of 115mph. It made landfall near the coastal city of Vinh in Vietnam on Monday afternoon, having slightly weakened but still packing a punch with winds of up to 100mph and torrential rainfall.
Kajiki’s wind threat soon faded after landfall, but the flood risk continued into Tuesday and Wednesday as the system moved inland. Parts of central and northern Vietnam, as well as Thailand, experienced 300-400mm of rainfall.
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Spurred into action by the species’ threatened future, two best friends embarked on a project to release 250 of the animals in Devon
Doing somersaults in the corner of a field in Devon this week were the fluffy results of an audacious wildlife project by two 13-year-old girls.
Best friends Eva Wishart and Emily Smith had become devoted to harvest mice, and were upset, a couple of years ago, to find out the species is threatened in England due to farming practices and habitat loss.
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Particles are small enough to burrow into lungs, says report, with health impacts ‘more substantial than we realize’
Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat.
The study, published in the journal Plos One, estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long, or move as deep into the pulmonary system.
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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Feargal Sharkey back campaign to save the animal, which once inspired placenames, songs and stories
When the Somerset Levels flood in winter, their reed-fringed waterways swell into a glinting inland sea – haunting and half forgotten.
Generations ago, these wetlands pulsed with the seasonal arrival of eels: twisting through rhynes – human-made water channels – and ditches in their thousands, caught in baskets, sung about in pubs and paid as rent to Glastonbury Abbey. Today those same waters flow more slowly, more sparsely: once-teeming channels now show only the barest traces of what was here.
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Volunteers are tasked with logging about 150,000 park trees by hand – and for some, it’s become a strange obsession
On a recent morning, as the late August sun began to beat down, a few dozen New Yorkers stood in the shade of one of the nearly 500 trees adorning Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, worrying a bit about hurting its feelings.
We had already identified the species – bald cypress – thanks to its feathered leaves and “strong pyramidal shape”, measured its trunk’s circumference (17in; 43cm), and noted that its roots appeared normal, its leaves were healthy and its branches had suffered some damage from improper pruning. But now we were tasked with assigning the tree an overall grade – on a scale of “poor” to “excellent” – and no one seemed to want to say.
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Living – or crocheted – canopies and a 3,000-year-old Persian technique are among methods being used to cope as temperatures soar
As Spain takes a breath after yet another brutal summer heatwave, with temperatures above 40C in many parts of the country, the residents of the sherry-making town of Jerez de la Frontera have come up with a novel way to keep the streets cool.
Green canopies of grapevines festoon the town, reducing street-level temperatures by as much as 8C. “We’re planting vines in the old city because we hope that in two or three years we’ll be able to brag that this has put an end to stifling temperatures,” said Jesús Rodríguez, president of Los Emparrados, a group of residents who aim to beautify and green the city’s streets.
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Herbicide on the Stari Grad Plain: hardly a tourist attraction.
Photo: Vivian Grisogono
