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Photo: Vivian Grisogono
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Golf clubs, private schools and car washes may face tighter rules from water companies as England’s drought continues
Three water companies are seeking to impose severe restrictions on businesses as the drought continues across most of England, putting rivers and wildlife under huge pressure.
Golf clubs and private schools could be barred from using mains water to irrigate playing fields and courses, and commercial car washes stopped from operating, under “non-essential use bans” being sought by the companies.
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Declining stocks and increased fishing pressure have led to lower sustainability ratings for two popular cod alternatives
UK shoppers have previously been urged to avoid UK-caught cod and to buy European hake or coley instead – but now these fish are in trouble, too.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS), an environmental charity, publishes its Good Fish Guide to help consumers and businesses make sustainable seafood choices. It uses a traffic-light system to rate seafood according to the health of fish stocks and environmental impact.
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Citizen scientists on UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme recorded insect visits to flowers during 10-minute surveys
Ubiquitous urban plants often derided as “weeds” are the most attractive to pollinating insects.
The autumn blooms of common ivy, rich in pollen and nectar, are the most visited by insects including bees and butterflies, according to an eight-year study.
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A selection of the winning images from this year’s competition across topics ranging from underwater to urban wildlife, and photojournalism to mammal behaviour. The overall winner is Federico Veronesi of Italy for his powerful image of an elephant carrying a dead calf
The winning photographs will be showcased at the Natural History Museum in London from 16 October 2026 until July 2027
Despite their size and gentle appearance, puffins will fight to keep their catch of sand eels from an opportunistic gull
Few birds are as paradoxical as the puffin. It rivals the robin as Britain’s best-loved bird, yet most people have never seen one in the flesh. In spring and summer, they gather in large, noisy colonies to breed, but spend the autumn and winter far out to sea in the North Atlantic. And despite their small size, and gentle, clown-like appearance, puffins will fight to save their precious catch of sand eels from being seized by an opportunistic – and much larger – skua or gull.
Puffins, like penguins, have a very human quality, too. When the late Bill Oddie and I filmed puffins at a colony on Shetland, he memorably described them as “looking like old men in dinner jackets, waiting to go into supper at the club”, while the bird’s scientific name, Fratercula arctica, translates as “little brother of the Arctic”.
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High-speed video captures a previously unknown process that lets a honeybee’s two-millimetre stinger pump venom even after detaching from the insect’s body. Using a clear gel that mimics human skin as a target, researchers from Macquarie University detached the stingers and then filmed them in action pumping venom
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River Lagan, Belfast: Right now you can see winter in the black-headed gull plumage, and spring in the mallards’. Yet feathers are also vital to how birds even came to exist
On my walk along the towpath, I pick up a small grey feather. It’s a flight feather, probably from the wing of a feral pigeon. I stroke it absently as I watch the birds that are swimming on the river’s surface. Steeped in autumn sunshine, the different species are also feathered with other seasons. Summer is in the fuzzy down of a late-hatched moorhen chick. Winter gleams in the white heads of the “black-headed” gulls. And, while a mallard’s emerald-green head is, as yet, tatty as old velvet, his crisply curled drake’s tails herald the coming spring.
If the story of birds is told in their plumage, then moult – the shedding and regrowth of feathers – is the turn of a page. The moorhen chick reminds me that the first chapter is about keeping warm. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, almost tucking the pigeon feather in as well. While our hair and birds’ feathersare both made of keratin, they differ in how they grow. In essence, hair extends as a single linear thread, whereas down feathers emerge frothing in all directions. As a fledgling matures, its outer feathers then lengthen, with a central shaft supporting branches that can flatten out and zip together to make a smooth surface.
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Cultivating the nutritious bugs means families can raise livestock and enrich their own food, while lowering pressures on the land
A few minutes’ walk from his home in the Kyaka II refugee settlement, Kanane Bikanyale feeds black soldier fly larvae to chickens in a coop above a fishpond. The larvae disappear in a scrum of chickens. Nearby, more larvae grow in modified jerrycans, while adult flies are kept in netted boxes.
Bikanyale kept chickens before he fled to Uganda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But the cost of conventional feed and shortages of ingredients made them increasingly difficult to raise – a widespread pressure for millions of smallholder farmers whose margins are tight.
Kanane Bikanyale tends to his black soldier fly larvae in a rearing unit in the Kyaka II refugee camp in Uganda
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At Bybi in Copenhagen, a dedicated group of staff and volunteers have built a community for all centred on the production of honey – much of which is given away for nothing. Could it be replicated elsewhere?
The bees at Bybi, a collective of beekeepers in Copenhagen, live on the roof. Their home is a complex of Victorian buildings, right in the centre of the city, that looks like an idealised vision of the modern social enterprise, ennobled by the architecture of the past. It’s a place of cottage industry in concert with nature, where the marginalised are brought in from the fringes and corporations stand waiting to help, where jobs happen but a lot of the work is done by volunteers, and where – this bit is important – a lot of time is spent discussing ideas.
Oliver Maxwell, Bybi’s 48-year-old founder, encourages me to examine the buildings more closely. They were once a prison, a workhouse and a hospital; their functions today – a homeless shelter, a young offender institution and, until recently, a job centre – are not so different. Denmark’s Victorian transformation, from “agricultural backwater to industrialised agriculture”, was reflected in how they treated people, Maxwell says.
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Should you look for French seams or overlocking? Is dry-clean only a red flag? And how do you spot quality when shopping online? We asked the pros
• How to make your leather last a lifetime
Take a look at the outfit you’re wearing now: how many times have you worn each item? And how long have you had them? Just over 10 years ago, Eco-Age founder Livia Firth and journalist Lucy Siegle launched the 30 wears challenge to encourage people to buy clothes they would wear at least 30 times.
The 30 wears challenge is a great concept. As a journalist interested in sustainable fashion, I’ve enjoyed applying this rule for years and found the goal can often be surpassed, but with one proviso: clothing must be chosen carefully. The goal is only realistic if garments are of good enough quality to stand up to repeated wear. So, how do you know if your clothes really are well made? Does it mean you have to spend a fortune on them? Do you need to know the difference between a French seam and an overlock seam? And how can we judge clothing quality before buying if we are, like 37% of Britons, getting most of our clothes online? I spoke to experts to find out.
Continue reading...A group of clinicians warns technology use in English schools is driving a rise in health problems like short-sightedness.
Although rare, cancer is the leading cause of death from disease among children under 15 in the UK.
It contains big lessons for the NHS, welfare, education and employment policies. What are the key takeaways?
Studies suggest women are getting angrier, but are they just more open about it?
The review, which focuses on younger people, warned there was a risk society was moving from an era of under-diagnosis to over-diagnosis.
The Duke of Sussex says he had an "adrenaline crash" while visiting Vancouver Island to "get some space".
NHS winter pressures appear to be building already, with rises in waiting times for planned surgery.
Neil and Katie Russell are working with the hospital where their daughter died on the scheme.
Care should focus on healthy eating and exercise, not medicines such as weight-loss injections, says the World Health Organization
For some, a hangover can start an anxious spiral. We spoke to experts about the reasons why.
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.
