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A draft Motion prepared for the EU Parliamentary Committe for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in March 2016.
Draft Motion prepared by Rapporteur Mireille d'Ornano on behalf of the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group.
More than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline, UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme finds
Last summer was the fifth worst in nearly half a century for butterflies in Britain, according to the biggest scientific survey of insect populations in the world.
For the first time since scientific recording began in 1976, more than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline.
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New Zealand’s docile, solitary and elusive ‘god of ugly things’ does wonders for the forest-floor ecosystem
Are you sick of throwing yourself on the altar of unrealistic beauty standards? Do you long to celebrate the delightfully monstrous, to give the spiny stuff of shadows their day in the sun? Then consider the mighty wētāpunga – an endemic New Zealand insect so revered for its unconventional beauty its name means “god of ugly things”.
This forest behemoth is thought to be the heaviest adult insect in the world, with a female weighing as much as a mouse or a sparrow. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm. Once found across parts of the North Island, the vulnerable wētāpunga – the largest of 70 wētā species – now resides entirely on a smattering of predator-free islands near Auckland.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
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Government wants to spur economic growth and drive housebuilding but charities say nature should be priority
Wildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.
While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections.
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Scientists say they are ingesting more microplastics in Mediterranean as the plankton they feed on struggle to survive in warming waters
As the Latin name suggests, Sardina pilchardus can be called a sardine or a pilchard when it is tinned or offered on a fishmonger’s slab. One common definition is that if it is longer than 15cm it is called a pilchard and if smaller, a sardine.
However, when pilchards fell out of favour with consumers, 15cm pilchards were rebranded as Cornish sardines and sales picked up again. To add to the confusion, other small silver fish are often passed off as sardines.
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Inkpen, Berkshire: All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour – before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything
Just before the land turns green in the chalky downlands, it goes as pale as it gets. As the earth warms and dries, the seed-drilled arable fields look as if they are spread with fresh breadcrumbs. The ruts harden and the rain-dark mud down the centre and the sides of the lanes greys and lightens to a crumbly, scuffable chalk dust that drifts in eddies and whitens everything further.
The pasture has a thatch of winter-weathered grass, and its split-wood colour is taken up by the raffia ribbons of spent bryony laced through the hedges, and the needle-fine forest of cleaver stems reaching up from the bottom. All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything. It’s time to harrow and roll.
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Full of clovers and dandelions, with a hard-wearing rye grass, the approach is environmentally friendly and usable
Is there a perfect formula for a hard-wearing flower lawn that is good for pollinators, dogs and people?
The immaculately mown green has fallen out of favour in recent years owing to its lack of support for biodiversity. But there have also been complaints about the tall wildflower meadows that grow during “no mow May” and are less usable for humans and pets.
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Experts are desperate to analyse rusty patched bumblebee nests for information that might help save them. But they are extremely hard to find – unless you’re a trained conservation canine
On a summer day in Somers, Wisconsin, Dave Giordano heard an unexpected buzzing in his back yard. What he found shocked him – a rusty patched bumblebee nest. The discovery was so rare it made the local news.
Once widespread across the midwest and eastern US, the rusty patched bumblebee has seen its population plunge by nearly 90%, prompting its listing in 2017 as the first federally endangered bumblebee in the US.
Main image: Two rusty patched bumblebee gynes in the nest discovered by Dave Giordano in August 2023. Below: Jay Watson, a conservation biologist, observes a nest (marked with orange flags) found in a rodent burrow
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A 19th-century zoologist found the ‘little salt dweller’, which could be a portal to the past – if only we could locate it again
Last February, with colleagues Gert and Philipp and my daughter Francesca, I made the long journey to an unremarkable city called Río Cuarto, east of the Argentinian Andes. We went in search of a worm of unusual distinction.
Why a worm? As humans, we naturally love the animals that are most familiar. But from a zoologist’s point of view, the vertebrates, from mammals and birds to frogs and fish, can be seen as variations on a single theme. We all have a head at one end (with skull, eyes and jaws); in the middle, a couple of pairs of limbs (a goldfish’s fins, or your arms and legs); and, holding all this together, a backbone ending in a tail.
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Locals are feeling the impact of the more than 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the city’s streets
“I’m afraid to open my front door, they’re everywhere,” said Mary Dore, eyeing the ground outside her house in Balsall Heath suspiciously. “They run out from under the cars when you get in, they’re going in the engines. They chewed through the cables in my son’s car, costing him god knows how much.
“There’s one street I can’t walk my dog because they come running out of the grass and the piles of rubbish. One time I screamed.”
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Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations
At first there was no answer on the satellite phone. But on the third call, Donald Meeseetawageesic heard his sister’s voice. “We need somebody to come and tow us out,” he told her.
It was a warmer-than-normal night in early March and Meeseetawageesic, the elected band councillor for Eabametoong First Nation, was stranded in a 4x4 truck on the dark winter road leading to his community. The tyres were stuck in the deep snow and the temperature outside was below freezing. Help was about 60km (37 miles) away.
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Virulentni soj superbakterije otporne na antibiotike koja uzrokuje tešku bolest otkriven je u bolnici u Maleziji, što predstavlja značajan izazov globalnom javnom zdravstvu, otkriva nova studija.
Nova studija naglašava globalnu prevalenciju nedostatka vitamina D tijekom trudnoće i njegovu povezanost s komplikacijama kao što su gestacijski dijabetes, prijevremeni porod i intrauterino ograničenje rasta – unatoč dodacima prehrani i izlaganju suncu.
Lijek tirzepatid poboljšao je funkciju bubrega i kardiovaskularne ishode kod pacijenata s pretilošću i zatajenjem srca s očuvanom ejekcijskom frakcijom (HFpEF) u usporedbi s placebom nakon jedne godine, ukazuje nova studija.
Novorazvijeni krvni test za Alzheimerovu bolest ne samo da pomaže u dijagnozi neurodegenerativnog stanja, već također pokazuje koliko je napredovalo, sugeriraju rezultati nove studije.
Švedski znanstvenici identificirali su genetske varijante koje povećavaju rizik od ateroskleroze. Cilj je da ova nova saznanja omoguće ranije otkrivanje ateroskleroze i poboljšaju liječenje kardiovaskularnih bolesti poput srčanog udara (infarkt miokarda) i moždanog udara.
Osobe s visokim rizikom od ponovljenih srčanih događaja nakon perkutane koronarne intervencije (PCI), postupka otvaranja začepljenih arterija, imale su značajno bolje rezultate s klopidogrelom nego s acetilsalicilatnom kiselinom kao dugotrajnom antiagregacijskom terapijom, ukazuje nova studija.
Rezultati nove studije pokazali su da u usporedbi s općom populacijom koja nije koristila antidepresive, pojedinci s poviješću korištenja antidepresiva imaju povećan rizik od iznenadne srčane smrti, koji varira ovisno o dobi i vremenu izloženosti.
Novo istraživanje pokazuje da prisutnost fibrilacije atrija povećava rizik od buduće demencije za 21% kod pacijenata s dijagnozom fibrilacije atrija mlađih od 70 godina i rizik od demencije s ranim početkom za 36%. Povezanost je bila jača kod mlađih odraslih osoba, a izgubljena je kod starijih osoba u dobi od 70 i više godina.
Ljudima sa zatajenjem srca dugo se savjetovalo da ograniče količinu tekućine koju konzumiraju svaki dan kako bi se smanjila kongestija ili nakupljanje tekućine u plućima i ekstremitetima, no taj savjet ne donosi nikakvu korist, ukazuje nova studija.
Izgleda da kombinacija molekularno ciljanog lijeka lenvatiniba i inhibitora imunološke kontrolne točke pembrolizumaba uz konvencionalno liječenje transarterijskom kemoembolizacijom (TACE) u bolesnika s neoperabilnim nemetastatskim hepatocelularnim karcinomom (HCC) značajno produžuje preživljenje bez progresije bolesti i ukupno preživljenje u usporedbi sa samim TACE-om.
