Topic description and stories

Rotherhithe tunnel 6

Bad air day? Low-cost pollution detectors to tackle air quality

02 Jun 2015

Pollution causes 30,000 people a year in the UK to die early yet most of us are unaware of the degree to which we are exposed to it. Low-cost...

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Words for mud and mountain, wind and wetland: answers on a postcard, please

01 Apr 2015

‘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...

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Left: A view across a valley in the Messak landscape. Right: A Levallois core, a distinctive type of Middle Stone Age stone tool, recovered on the surface of the Messak

Saharan 'carpet of tools' is the earliest known man-made landscape

11 Mar 2015

Researchers used the new survey of the Messak Settafet to estimate that enough stone tools were discarded over the course of human evolution in...

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A chimpanzee uses a stone to crack a nut

Opportunity, and not necessity, is the mother of invention

12 Nov 2014

When food is scarce, tool use among non-human primates does not increase. This counterintuitive finding leads researchers to suggest that the driving...

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Swaddywell Pit near Helpston, Northants

'Besom ling and teasel burrs': John Clare and botanising

20 Sep 2014

A symposium taking place on Tuesday (23 September 2014) at Cambridge University Botanic Garden will unite artists, writers, scientists and literary...

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West Summerland Key Mangrove Ecosystem, Florida Keys

Putting a value on what nature does for us

11 Sep 2014

Interactive online tool allows the value of an ecosystem to be calculated, and allows users to determine how altering a habitat can affect its...

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On yer bike!

30 Oct 2013

With governments around the world under increasing pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, transport systems are under scrutiny. Dr James...

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Tha'll do

Putting a price on our future

07 Oct 2013

Helping big businesses consider their impact on the environment is leading to a re-evaluation of activities to combine profitability with...

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Factory

The shape of things to come

02 Oct 2013

Researchers are providing a vision for creatively rethinking how the manufacturing industry can perform sustainably in a changing world.

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The world is changing: how do we respond?

01 Oct 2013

Today we commence a month-long focus on research on sustainability and the environment. To begin, Professor Lord Martin Rees and Professor Paul...

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Coconut

Top conservation issues to look out for in 2013

06 Dec 2012

Researchers have identified 15 issues that could affect the diversity of life on Earth in 2013.

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Thermal image of two people standing outside a building. The study found that in many European countries, including the UK, predicted energy usage in homes bears little resemblance to the amount used in practice.

The prebound effect

03 Jul 2012

Many homes with poor energy efficiency are actually consuming far less energy than predicted, new research has found. The study has implications for...

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