Representative image of DNA All life on Earth, from bacteria to blue whales, writes its genetic instructions using the same four-letter alphabet. These four DNA bases, usually referred to as A, T, C and G, pair up in predictable ways to store and pass on the information needed for life. Now, researchers at UC San…
Red-billed choughs are re-establishing themselves in Kent, with the county’s population now standing at 35 birds following a summer in which eight wild-born chicks successfully fledged. Kent Wildlife Trust confirmed the figure this week, noting that the latest additions take the total number of wild-born choughs to nine since the species returned to the county….
A new study reveals that wolves brought back to Isle Royale National Park are building a self-sustaining population. Researchers observed the wolves from September 2018 to September 2023 after the National Park Service released 19 animals captured in Minnesota, Michigan and Ontario. The population grew steadily during this period, reaching a minimum of 27 wolves…
Mathematician and programmer Mary Tsingou Menzel When mathematician and programmer Mary Tsingou Menzel sat down in 1952 at Los Alamos National Laboratory to code a complex physics problem on one of the world’s earliest digital computers, she was breaking new ground. Her work helped make possible a landmark experiment that went on to influence chaos…
On the edge of the Mojave Desert, rows of solar panels now cover ground that once looked much like the surrounding landscape: pale sand, scattered vegetation and long stretches of exposed soil. The Gemini solar project, northeast of Las Vegas, was built across about 20 square kilometres and contains roughly 1.8 million panels. Before construction,…
China’s Taihu Lake sees improved water quality over past 10 years A field trial using a two-stage nanobubble treatment system across a 3,300-square-metre section of Taihu Lake in eastern China reduced a key measure of toxic cyanobacteria by nearly 90 per cent within 20 days. Published in the journal Environmental Research and indexed on PubMed,…
Floating wetlands slash wastewater greenhouse gas emissions Installing a floating wetland planted with native vegetation on an Australian municipal wastewater lagoon cut methane emissions by up to 66 per cent, according to the results of a two-year field trial. Published on 25 August 2026 in the Journal of Environmental Management, the peer-reviewed study looked at…
Nature recovery at Broughton Sanctuary Four years after moving 2,500 acres of North Yorkshire farmland away from intensive farming, conservation teams at Broughton Sanctuary have recorded more than 1,700 species and planted 330,000 trees across the estate. According to the Broughton Sanctuary State of Nature Recovery Report, published in December 2025, 80 per cent of…
Alexander von Humboldt spent much of his life travelling through landscapes that most Europeans of his era knew only from maps, then trying to understand what connected the things he encountered. He climbed mountains, measured temperatures and atmospheric pressure, recorded plants and minerals and compared conditions across different elevations. His work eventually led him to…
One year after beavers were released into the wild at Studland in Dorset, their activity has dramatically reshaped part of the local landscape A pair of wild beavers released in Dorset have transformed a dense woodland into a bright, wetland habitat within just 12 months of arriving in their new home. Data shared by the…