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‘It used to be a farm – now it’s a mall’: how El Salvador’s crisis-hit coffee producers are trying to adapt

The new highway has taken chunks out of Ines Ortiz’s coffee farm but the land lost to the Los Chorros Megaproject, El Salvador’s largest-ever infrastructure scheme, is only the latest crisis faced by growers in Central America’s smallest country,…

03/10/2024

Real art in museums stimulates brain much more than reprints, study finds

It was a truth known to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell back in 1968, but now scientists have caught up with them: there really ain’t nothing like the real thing.

03/10/2024

French AI summit to focus on environmental impact of energy-hungry tech

World leaders at the next AI summit will focus on the impact on the environment and jobs, including the possibility of ranking the greenest AI companies, it has been announced.

02/10/2024

Tiny brain, big deal: fruit fly diagram could transform neuroscience

Researchers have produced the first wiring diagram for the whole brain of a fruit fly, a feat that promises to revolutionise the field of neuroscience and pave the way for unprecedented insights into how the brain produces behaviour.

02/10/2024

I’ll never be an optimist – but how do I resist becoming cynical?

I’d never describe myself as cynical. Yes, I have little faith in the likelihood of our coming together as a species to solve the climate crisis, make housing affordable or vote for the non-criminal presidential candidate.

02/10/2024

Comet last seen in stone age to make closest approach to Earth

A comet that has not been seen from Earth since Neanderthals were alive and kicking has reappeared in the sky, with astronomers saying it might be visible to the naked eye.

01/10/2024

Why the fake news confidence trap could be your downfall

It’s a wild world out there online, with dis- and misinformation flying about at pace. I’m part-way through writing a book about the history of fake news, so I’m well aware that people making stuff up is not new.

01/10/2024

Avocado bathrooms are back in UK as younger homeowners go green

Wild sage, lemon, peach, sorbet, mint, and avocado: not the makings of a bizarre fruit salad, but some of the forgotten shades of Britain’s bathrooms that were popular in the mid-20th century.

01/10/2024

Botanists identify 33 global ‘dark spots’ with thousands of unknown plants

Botanists have identified 33 “dark spots” around the world where thousands of plant species are probably waiting to be discovered, according to new research.

01/10/2024

A butterfly: ‘elbowing each other with the joints on their legs, pushing and shoving to get at the liquid’

The very funny naturalist and writer Redmond O’Hanlon was on a sandbank on the edge of a river in Borneo when hundreds of butterflies started to fly towards him and his travel companion and landed on their boots, trousers, and shirts, and “sucked…

30/09/2024

High tech, high yields? The Kenyan farmers deploying AI to increase productivity

Sammy Selim strode through the dense, shiny green bushes on the slopes of his coffee farm in Sorwot village in Kericho, Kenya, accompanied by a younger farmer called Kennedy Kirui.

30/09/2024