Wind turbines aren't quite 'apex predators', but the truth is far more interesting

Nov 08, 2018 16:48 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Wind turbines are, it appears, everywhere. Even if you cant see some on the horizon on your way into work every day, it is hard to miss the continual news coverage of new developments. Clearly, efforts to move away from...

Borneo cave discovery: is the world's oldest rock art in Southeast Asia?

Nov 08, 2018 16:42 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Cave paintings in remote mountains in Borneo have been dated to at least 40,000 years ago much earlier than first thought according to a study published today in Nature. These artworks include a painting of what seems...

Venice has flooded, but other cities are in much greater danger

Nov 04, 2018 15:05 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Venice has flooded. But while worry about the worst floods in a decade and warnings about the impacts of climate change and sea level rise dominate most of the media coverage, theres a more complex story to be told. In...

What teeth can tell about the lives and environments of ancient humans and Neanderthals

Nov 04, 2018 14:30 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Increasing variation in the climate has been implicated as a possible factor in the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens) 300,000 years ago, as well as the more recent demise of our enigmatic evolutionary cousins, the...

Earth’s wilderness is vanishing, and just a handful of nations can save it

Nov 04, 2018 14:17 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Just 20 countries are home to 94% of the worlds remaining wilderness, excluding the high seas and Antarctica, according to our new global wilderness map, published today in Nature. A century ago, wilderness extended...

Tipping point: huge wildlife loss threatens the life support of our small planet

Nov 04, 2018 14:15 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

A report by the WWF published on October 30 reveals how our actions are degrading the natural world the very basis on which our livelihood depends. The Living Planet Report 2018 shows that between 1970 and 2014,...

African elephants in literature -- lessons in exploitation and compassion

Nov 04, 2018 13:15 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

About 15 years ago I was in a Minneapolis conference centre, about to deliver a paper on elephants in Southern African fiction, when I encountered a curious local in an elevator. When I told her that one of my subjects was...