A new book outlines the mistakes and missteps that made UK pandemic worseThere was a distinctive moment, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, that neatly encapsulated the mistakes and confusion of Britain’s early efforts to tackle the disease, says M…
Battle of Culloden is being fought anew … against an army of house developers
Site where Bonnie Prince Charlie led the Jacobite uprising of 1746 under threat from property developmentIt was the last pitched battle fought on British soil, and its outcome determined the future of the newly formed United Kingdom and its fledgling e…
Beautiful obsession: a 20-year mission in waters of Lake Tanganyika
Marine photographer Angel Fitor first saw endangered cichlids in a pet shop. Now his award-winning images could help save these fishLake Tanganyika is the world’s longest freshwater lake. It stretches for more than 400 miles across central Africa and p…
Covid vaccines for care home staff: why ‘no jab, no job’ is controversial
Key questions behind the government’s decree that care home staff must be vaccinated against Covid-19Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageWhy is there controversy about giving Covid-19 vaccinations to care home staff?Ministers ha…
The millionaire rewilding the countryside, one farm at a time
Julia Davies, lawyer turned activist, is helping wildlife groups to buy up land – and fight back against Britain’s biodiversity crisisJulia Davies had one only goal in mind when she sold her share of the outdoor equipment company Osprey Europe a few ye…
Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecologyIn a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a s…
DNA from thin air: a new way to detect rare wildlife in hostile environments
Discovery that traces of genetic material are all around us opens a non-invasive way to boost biodiversityDNA is in the air – literally. It is wafted around by all the Earth’s creatures, and now scientists have found a way to detect these invisible tra…
The Brilliant Abyss by Helen Scales; Below the Edge of Darkness by Edith Widder – reviews
Two books on the mysteries of the deep ocean take very different approaches in stressing the urgent need for conservationDivers investigating an underwater canyon off California made a startling discovery in 2002. They found a dead whale that appeared …