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Longest serving volunteer helps boost bird numbers
Nigel Hewitt, the RSPB’s longest-serving volunteer, has marked 60 years of dedication to bird conservation, having first started in 1966 while on a break from his A-level studies to help protect ospreys. Now 77, he has played a key role in safeguarding the cirl bunting, a small farmland finch that was nearly lost from the…
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Mount Toba eruption doesn’t seem like it could nearly kill our species
New research suggests the colossal Mount Toba volcanic eruption around 74,000 years ago, long theorised to have nearly wiped out early humans through a prolonged “volcanic winter”, actually caused far milder and shorter-lived cooling than previously feared. Geoscientist Jinheum Park and colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz examined sediment from Lake Chala, a crater…
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Grim discovery as woman’s body is found in suitcase discarded next to a road
The body of a woman was discovered inside a suitcase that had been left beside a road near Oallen, in the Goulburn area of New South Wales, Australia. Police are treating the discovery as suspicious and have launched an investigation to identify the victim and establish the circumstances of her death. Officers were alerted to…
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Wildlife presenter Anneka Svenska is told to go on a ‘thinking skills course’ after police confronted her over a social media post
Wildlife TV presenter Anneka Svenska has been visited by police and told to attend a “thinking skills” course after a complaint was made about a post she shared on social media. The case has drawn attention as another example of UK police devoting resources to investigating online speech, a practice that has become a source…
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1999: Solar eclipse experienced from Alderney
BBC News has republished archive footage from 1999 showing the total solar eclipse as viewed from Alderney in the Channel Islands, timed to coincide with an upcoming partial eclipse visible from the same islands. The original event drew hundreds of astronomers and enthusiasts to the small island to witness one of the most dramatic astronomical…
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‘Objet a’ Explores Desire and Control in an Age When We “Touch Flat Screens More Than Our Lover’s Skin”
Berlin-based filmmaker Ann Oren returns to the Locarno Film Festival with “Objet a,” a stylised, visceral drama exploring desire, control, intimacy and identity through the lens of touch in a screen-dominated age. The film centres on two hand surgeons, Ingeborg and Adam, whose tightly controlled relationship is upended after an accident brings a mysterious woman,…
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‘If we worry about erosion, we will never get any sleep’
Residents of Trimingham, a village on the Norfolk coast, are adapting to the ongoing threat of coastal erosion rather than trying to fight it, after decades of cliff loss have already made dozens of properties uninhabitable. The story highlights how communities along vulnerable stretches of the English coastline are having to plan for the eventual…
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Most of sun to be eclipsed across island of Ireland
A deep partial solar eclipse will be visible across the island of Ireland on Wednesday evening, obscuring more than 90% of the sun and marking the largest such event seen from the island until September 2090. It will be followed hours later by the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, with astronomers describing the coincidence…
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TV tonight: Andrew Lincoln narrates an impressive nature series
Tonight’s TV highlights include the natural history series Force of Nature on ITV1, narrated by Andrew Lincoln, which examines how extreme weather and human activity are disrupting coastal wildlife such as flamingo colonies and clownfish habitats. Other notable programmes include the finale of climate-crisis drama The Rapture on BBC One, the continuing crime drama Van…
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‘I am a woman in a man’s rubbish world’
Sandra McCluskey, who runs a waste collection firm called The Firm in the Milton Keynes area, has spoken out about being “a woman in a man’s world” in the male-dominated waste management industry. She said she had been warned against getting involved but was determined to reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill or…