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Photo: Vivian Grisogono
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Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements
On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.
Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.
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Exclusive: finding out who owns land will become simpler under plans to make the best use of green spaces and hit net zero targets
Finding out who owns land in England is to become much simpler because a paywall will be lifted from large parts of the Land Registry, the government is to announce.
A small number of landowners control the majority of land but finding out who owns what is difficult to piece together, even for government departments, owing to the way the Land Registry operates. Freeing up access will make it easier to determine ownership of key areas, such as river catchments, grouse moors and peatland.
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Frome, Somerset: A small patch of land, leased by the council, will be the site of a new community project. And so we descend, ready to rewrite its future
Who crawled along Snail’s Bottom? Who found beauty on Bonnyleigh Hill? Who measured Little Acre Farm? This small patch of Somerset – like everywhere else in Britain – is a storied landscape, every feature named and memorialised by mostly forgotten individuals. Our job over the next two hours is to take one such name, one such story, and overwrite it with something better.
Over a level crossing, through a kissing gate and on to a public footpath running down sloping ground. I had only been told the local epithet for this banana-shaped paddock after we moved here, though my arm already understood its origin. A priapic stallion, its coat studded with burdock burrs like a peppered mackerel, had clamped its jaws around my humerus. “That’s bitey horse field,” people told me. Bitey no more, for the poor fly-grazing beast has left, and our ever-proactive town council has secured the land on a 99-year lease.
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Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it tricks ants into moving its seeds with a scent that mimics their larvae
Plants are superb at enticing animals to pollinate their flowers or carry off their seeds. But one plant co-opts an astonishing combination of fire, bees and ants to mastermind its reproduction.
The South African Natal crocus, Apodolirion buchananii, has a gloriously bright white flower that emerges from the ground before its leaves appear in early spring. But the flower only blooms shortly after fire breaks out naturally in its native grasslands, leaving it standing like a beacon among the blackened grass to help lure bee pollinators, with an irresistible sweet scent that wafts through the air.
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Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analysts
The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.
The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station.
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Our photojournalist explores the Cornish landmark on the eve of its anniversary and meets some of its staff, visitors, plants and creatures
“Give me a sleeping bag and I’ll happily sleep here overnight,” says Kim Mackintosh as she wanders amid the vibrant flora of the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project on the eve of the tourist attraction’s 25th anniversary.
Loupe in hand, the leader of the biome’s horticulture team is marvelling at an array of plants that have recently come into bloom, tenderly examining the yellow furry buds of an Acacia glaucoptera before flogging a Grevillea flower to dispense its rich, honey-flavoured nectar.
Kim Mackintosh inspects the ‘kangaroo paw’ of an Anigozanthos through her loupe. All photographs by Jonny Weeks
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From fluffy owlets to rosy-hued flamingos, Claire Rosen’s portraits of live birds took her on a journey that touched on colonialism, wallpaper design … and chickens
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As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset
Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find footholds in the dark.
I’m here with film-maker Robert Petit, so he can show me something of what he’s been experiencing for the past five years, on his way to making an endearingly poetic documentary film called Underland, which riffs on nature-writer Robert Macfarlane’s bestselling 2019 subterranean travelogue of the same name. We’re heading 100ft underground to the Boulder Chamber where, over sugary snacks, I will quiz him about his obsession.
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The detection at a popular park of ‘one of the worst invasive species to reach Australia’ is causing concern that suppression efforts are cracking
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The Newmarket women’s football side was gearing up for its clash against crosstown club New Farm United in Brisbane’s inner northern suburbs on Saturday morning when a message pinged in the team’s group chat.
Just hours before kick-off, the game was postponed, to a date undetermined.
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Falling costs and government incentives make solar an attractive option for many, reducing need for gas
After prices of liquefied natural gas surged to record highs after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, millions of people in Pakistan were repeatedly left without electricity. An intense heatwave and gas shortages amid record-breaking prices resulted in power cuts across the country.
But people soon started to realise there was an alternative. The falling costs of solar panels and generous government incentives to feed excess power back to the grid made rooftop solar an attractive option.
Continue reading...Vaccines are being offered to 5,000 students at the University of Kent, where there is a outbreak.
Two people have died following an "unpredecented" outbreak of meningitis in Kent.
Scotland would have become the first part of the UK to legalise the process had MSPs backed the proposals.
Kennedy had slashed the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11, sparking a backlash from health experts.
The patient watchdog warns of two-tier service as polling shows numbers paying for care is on the rise.
Participants were less likely to become homeless or spend time in hospital or prison, researchers say.
The number of fit notes issued has been rising, with more than 11.2m approved in England last year.
Use our interactive tracker to see if treatment waits are getting better at your local hospital.
In first study of its kind, Cambridge researchers found AI toys could misread some children's emotions.
Lauren Macpherson was travelling home from a festival in London when her life changed forever.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
