Stories that we think you’ll find interesting and inspiring

Earlier this week we heard the sad news that the man who discovered the ozone hole, Joe Farman, has died. I’m sure you all know what the ozone layer is and what the issue with the hole was, but just as a quick reminder

Today the EU voted to ban a type of pesticide called neonicotinoids across member states for a period of two years. Environmentalists are hoping that this will bring about a change in the fortune of bees whose numbers have been decreasing over recent years.

Bees may seem like a funny thing to care so much about, in fact we’re always hearing about the plight of bees. They’re not cute, they’re not cuddly, but they are incredibly useful and you’ll miss them when they’re gone, and I mean really really miss them, as pretty much all of our food either directly or indirectly relies on bees as bees are …

Read all of Good news for bees!

I guess we’re all familiar with the social and political problems that have faced Iraq over the past few decades, but we’d just like to offer one little ray of sunshine, in the form of the ongoing rehabilitation of the Mesopotamian marshes.

Sometimes I just want to think about cute things, and a story I saw today has allowed me to do just that. London’s water voles have been given ladders in order to enable them to get out more. Awwww!

Have you ever considered eating insects? No, neither have we, except for that fly that took a dive into our mug of tea last week. There are 1,462 recorded edible species of insect out there and although it’s very rare in Europe and most of the first world, in many parts of the world insects are a vital part of the diet. In Thailand and Cambodia you can eat deep fried tarantula and in Indonesia you can buy salted dragonflies in coconut milk.

Have you ever heard of cloud seeding? We take a look at what it is and whether or not it is a good thing for the world.

Elephants in the protected Serengeti national park feel less stressed than those outside the protected area. What can this tell us about the intelligence of an elephant?

This week the Marine Conversation Society (MCS) has announced that it has taken Mackerel off its list of fish which are suitable to eat. What this means is that there are not enough of this species of fish to go round, and that fishing for it may mean that there are not enough left to reproduce in the future. We have looked before at how one species having a tough time affects those around them (either it means that the animals they eat don’t get eaten and there end up being too many of them to be able to survive, and the next thing down the food …

Read all of Holy Mackerel!

The big science news over Christmas was that a project to drill down through 3km of ice to a lake in Antarctica which has been cut off for thousands of years had to be stopped due to equipment malfunctioning.

This week, the Climate action network of Europe along with Germanwatch have published the “climate change performance Index 2013”,