A quiet policy shift in Rotherham has turned into one of the most talked-about examples of low-cost environmental change. Back in 2013, the town decided to stop mowing large stretches of roadside grass and instead replace them with wildflowers. What followed was unexpected. Maintenance costs dropped significantly, wildlife returned in noticeable numbers and the once-plain…

Priscilla Chan’s journey from the daughter of Vietnamese refugees to a Harvard graduate, paediatrician and major science philanthropist is rooted in a family story shaped by war and migration. Her grandparents put her parents, who were teenagers at the time, on boats to flee Vietnam during the war. Chan grew up in Massachusetts, where her…

Reverberant sounds made in an empty environment are the result of sound waves bouncing off hard, flat surfaces, as governed by basic principles of the science of physical acoustics. When completed, the energy of the sound wave travels through space until it meets some boundary surface. In a furnished environment (e.g., living room with furniture),…

A nest box occupied by a Eurasian scops owl might seem an unlikely place to find a live snake, yet that is exactly what researchers repeatedly encountered in central Türkiye. Across six breeding seasons, they inspected 109 owl nests and found the small worm snake Xerotyphlops vermicularis in 44% of them. The reptiles were not…

File photo: Israeli defence minister Israel Katz Israel said on Tuesday that its military would take control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to create a “security zone”, marking a major escalation in its campaign against Hezbollah, while Lebanon took the unprecedented step of declaring Iran’s ambassador persona non grata and ordering him…