‘Dumberdash’ is an old Cheshire term for a short but violent storm. A ‘lumpenhole’ is a deep trench for fluid farmyard waste. The man who remembers these words is among the scores of people who have written to Dr Robert Macfarlane in response to his latest book, Landmarks.
Researchers used the new survey of the Messak Settafet to estimate that enough stone tools were discarded over the course of human evolution in Africa to build more than one Great Pyramid for every square kilometre of land on the continent.
When food is scarce, tool use among non-human primates does not increase. This counterintuitive finding leads researchers to suggest that the driving force behind tool use is ecological opportunity – and that the environment shapes development of culture.
A symposium taking place on Tuesday (23 September 2014) at Cambridge University Botanic Garden will unite artists, writers, scientists and literary scholars to look at the poet John Clare’s close engagement with the natural environment as a botanist as well as poet.
Interactive online tool allows the value of an ecosystem to be calculated, and allows users to determine how altering a habitat can affect its economic, social and environmental worth.
With governments around the world under increasing pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, transport systems are under scrutiny. Dr James Woodcock has introduced another factor into the equation: population health.
Helping big businesses consider their impact on the environment is leading to a re-evaluation of activities to combine profitability with sustainability.
Researchers are providing a vision for creatively rethinking how the manufacturing industry can perform sustainably in a changing world.
Today we commence a month-long focus on research on sustainability and the environment. To begin, Professor Lord Martin Rees and Professor Paul Linden, respectively Chair and Director of the Cambridge Forum for Sustainability and the Environment, describe how experts from across the University have joined forces to examine how we can respond to some of the most pressing global sustainability challenges.
Researchers have identified 15 issues that could affect the diversity of life on Earth in 2013.
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