You can do your bit for insects by growing lots of foliage in your garden, a study has found. Ground-dwelling insects, such as beetles, generally benefit from dense vegetation, including evergreens. Spiders, however, prefer a bit of bare earth – such as a bald patch in a lawn or a sparse flower bed. Alarm bells

Two explorers are short of food and battling strong winds after trekking hundreds of miles at the North Pole, but they hope to reach safety soon. South African Mike Horn and Norwegian Boerge Ousland have covered about 1,800km (1,120 miles) on treacherous drifting ice. Because of delays their food is likely to run out on

In January 2018, a falling meteorite created a bright fireball that arced over the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, followed by loud sonic booms. The visitor not only dropped a slew of meteorites over the snow-covered ground, it also provided information about its extra-terrestrial source. Although tens of thousands of meteorites have been recovered by humans,

GM chairman and CEO Mary Barra said Thursday morning that the automaker is forming a joint venture with LG Chem to mass produce battery cells for its electric vehicles, a portfolio that will include a new battery-electric truck coming in the fall of 2021. The two companies said they will invest up to a total

British engineers have begun testing technologies that will be needed to bring samples of Martian rock to Earth. The Airbus team is training a prototype rover to recognise and pick up small cylinders off the ground. It’s a rehearsal for a key part of a multi-billion-dollar project now being put together by the US and

The seal population on the Farne Islands off Northumberland, is growing, with the number of seal pups hitting an all time high of over 2,700. Now the National Trust rangers who keep track of the animals are using drones to help count the islands’ seal population in a safer and less disruptive way.

Scientists have made artificial nerve cells, paving the way for new ways to repair the human body. The tiny “brain chips” behave like the real thing and could one day be used to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s. A team from the University of Bath used a combination of maths, computation and chip design to

Baby porpoises in waters off the UK are being exposed to a cocktail of chemicals in their mother’s milk. Research found the most potent pollutants, which may be toxic to the brain, are passed from mother to calf. The chemicals are among the 200 or so polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which accumulate in the bodies of

The U.S. government may be in the process of formally withdrawing from the term of the Paris Agreement, an International accord on targets to fight climate change, but major U.S. employers say they’ll stay the course in a new statement jointly signed by a group of 148 chief executives and U.S. labor organization leaders. The

Media playback is unsupported on your device It’s long been suspected but scientists can now show conclusively that thinning in the ring of floating ice around Antarctica is driving mass loss from the interior of the continent. A new study finds the diminishing thickness of ice shelves is matched almost exactly by an acceleration in

A new breed of apple that took two decades to develop and allegedly lasts for up to a year in the fridge goes on sale in the US on Sunday. The apple – Cosmic Crisp – is a cross-breed of the Honeycrisp and Enterprise and was first cultivated by Washington State University in 1997. The

Fifteen-year-old Cheikh Bamba Diaby is a self-taught robotic engineer. The Senegalese teen discovered his passion after he had to unblock his sister’s mobile phone using tips he learnt on the internet. Initially, his parents were worried because of the materials he was handling, but Cheikh says that they now encourage him to pursue his dream.

A recycling plant believes it has found a more sustainable way to dispose of old fridges. The AO Recycling plant in Telford is now trying to recover the plastic from fridges, to make new fridges, creating a circular economy. Produced, filmed and edited by digital reporter Dougal Shaw

Media playback is unsupported on your device A team of British scientists has arrived in the Antarctic to try to find the continent’s “missing meteorites”. The group, from the University of Manchester, will spend six weeks scouring a remote region for lumps of iron that have fallen from the sky. These pieces of metal represent

Europe will press ahead with a network of satellites to track carbon dioxide emissions across the globe. They will be developed out of a new European Space Agency (Esa) budget agreed in Seville, Spain. Research ministers on Thursday approved a package of proposals worth some €14.4bn (£12.3bn/$15.9bn) over the next five years. As well as

It’s been by far the greenest campaign in UK election history, with parties pledging tougher policies on the environment and climate change. But in a year of Greta Thunberg’s UN speech and Sir David Attenborough’s documentaries on the state of the planet, how far do the parties really go? Well, after 30 years reporting this

Claire Brimacombe was walking through a park in East Sussex last February, when her eyes suddenly fell on a white squirrel. After she kept on the seeing the unusual rodent – only one in 100,000 are born albino – in the Alfriston park, she decided to start recording the sightings, noting apparent hotspots for them

Forests can cope with a warming world if – and only if – temperature rises increase in line with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Increased CO2 allows trees to develop physiological characteristics, such as greater foliage, that can cope with higher temperatures. But researchers warn that a break in the temperature-CO2 increase ratio could trigger

Countries will have to increase their carbon-cutting ambitions five fold if the world is to avoid warming by more than 1.5C, the UN says. The annual emissions gap report shows that even if all current promises are met, the world will warm by more than double that amount by 2100. Richer countries have failed to

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases once again reached new highs in 2018. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the increase in CO2 was just above the average rise recorded over the last decade. Levels of other warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, have also surged by above average amounts.