With Nature

Major incident declared, with Sizewell B power station monitoring blaze and RSPB nature reserve badly hitHundreds of people have been evacuated and a major incident declared after a wildfire spread over more than 80 hectares (200 acres) on the coast of Suffolk, just a few miles from the Sizewell B nuclear power station.The fire – which had been described by one witness as “apocalyptic” – was said to be stabilising on Thursday night. The statement was posted by Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service, which said at least 12 fire crews were remaining overnight in the area. Continue reading...
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Ferocious flames continue to rage in parts of France and Spain, with no sign of abating. We chart the destruction in graphics and picturesThe hellish infernos that have torn through parts of France and Spain have caused deaths, the evacuation of 330,000 people from their homes, widespread destruction and clouds of toxic smoke. Records have already been smashed and with the fourth heatwave of the European summer setting in, there are few signs of the waves of wildfires ending.France has already surpassed the worst previous year for the size of the area burned, with August, usually the hottest month, yet to come. Continue reading...
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Forty hectares of Oaken Wood could be razed after it was identified as potential site of expansion by Reform-run councilIt was at the confluence of seven forest paths that Allison Sweetman came to a stop. Trees rose on all sides, save for a recently coppiced section to the north-east. The noon heat had silenced most birds, but the quiet was peaceful.“This is what they call Seven Wents,” she said. For centuries, the people of Kent had travelled this way, from East Malling to Barming, from Ditton to Teston, for church, commerce and friends. “It’s on maps going back 400 years.” Continue reading...
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Analysis of samples collected from carcasses found traces of toxic chemical compound, says Kenya Wildlife ServiceThe recent deaths of 15 elephants near a park in southern Kenya in the past month were likely caused by the animals ingesting pesticides used on nearby tomato farms, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has said.Erustus Kanga, the agency’s director general, told Citizen TV that analysis of samples collected from the carcasses had found traces of cyanide, a chemical compound used in farming as a predator control poison and a pest fumigant, which has also been used by poachers. Continue reading...
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From Leicestershire to Carmarthenshire, neighbourhoods are struggling with wave after wave of houseflies. Why are they suffering while others are spared? And is there no alternative to nets and zappers?Francesca Davies’s living room is absolutely teeming with flies. You can’t enter the contact centre worker’s home without a cluster of insects rising from the sofa or the floor to buzz around your face. Davies and her family live in West Heath, a suburb of the Cheshire town Congleton. Davies’s husband, Alex Andrew, a 29-year-old maintenance engineer, grew up in the market town and he used to think of West Heath as a desirable area, with its well-maintained houses and access to green space. When he and Davies were able to buy a new-build here in 2019 via a shared ownership scheme, they felt incredibly lucky. That is, until they moved in, and realised that every summer swarms of flies descend on their neighbourhood, an issue that is “getting worse”, Davies says.At the moment, the 27-year-old swats flies out of her young daughters’ bedroom every night before she puts them to bed, and keeps doors and windows closed or covered with fly nets as much as possible. She and Andrew have even bought an industrial fly killer (like the ones often found in fish and chip shops) for their kitchen, as it is impossible to start cooking without attracting even more insects. The pair have become used to the sound of flies “getting zapped throughout the night”, Davies says. Continue reading...
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Boom in migrating moth sightings put down to hot weather, strong winds and food scarcity in Europe He had just sat down to dinner in the garden when a speedy visitor whizzed by – a “grey lump with orange wings”, recalled Luke Burstow, from Sussex. It was a hummingbird hawk-moth, a flying insect that migrates to the UK from continental Europe and north Africa.“I was like: ‘Wow!’,” said the software project manager. “I didn’t even know they existed.” Continue reading...
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Liverpool: Paul McCartney’s latest album has brought tourists here, but there’s so much more to see than the signEarlier this year, Paul McCartney released an album called The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Among the unashamed nostalgia is a wistful track, Days We Left Behind, which evokes memories of his visits to the Mersey shore with George Harrison and friends. Young Paul was, it turns out, a keen birdwatcher.Perhaps inevitably, the album has brought crowds of tourists to photograph the sign. The Speke end of the lane where they mostly gather is uninspiring, bounded by remnants of a demolished pub, a solar farm and an electricity substation. Continue reading...
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Several councils to stop housing tenants in glass-fronted Britannia Point in London, where tenants were earlier told they could not use air conAs the fourth heatwave of the year hit the UK on Wednesday, Benice Bodah and her three teenage sons braced for more scorching temperatures inside their south-west London home. The two-bedroom flat has a built-in air-conditioning unit, but it has worked only intermittently in the almost three years since the family were placed in temporary accommodation at Britannia Point in Colliers Wood. “It has not been easy, but what can we do?” said Bodah, 48.Several councils have now agreed to stop housing families in emergency accommodation in the glass-fronted block after the Guardian revealed they had been told they couldn’t use the air-conditioning during heatwaves as it had “not been offered as an amenity” for them. The 19-storey building is owned by Criterion Capital, set up by the billionaire property magnate Asif Aziz. The temporary tenancies can last from weeks to years and are managed separately by letting agencies, including the London-based Aura Assets Management. Continue reading...
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Wild Inside looks back on the incredible year when an escaped zoo owl managed to bring New Yorkers together Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl gained a cult following after leaving his life in captivity at the Central Park zoo in 2023 and surviving, against all odds, for more than a year as a free bird in Manhattan.Birdwatchers tracked his every move, capturing his vast wingspan and luminous orange eyes with their cameras. His fans got tattoos in his honor. And now, Wild Inside, a new documentary chronicling Flaco’s year about town, is set to premiere this week. Continue reading...
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Climate crisis affects not only the amount of rain that falls but where, with implications for land use and water securityHave you ever wondered how far a raindrop has travelled before it lands on you? It may have journeyed thousands of kilometres from the ocean, sea or lake it evaporated from – and now research shows raindrops are travelling even farther than they used to.Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and that is changing not only how much rain we receive but also where it falls. Travis Aerenson, of the University of Wyoming, and his colleagues modelled atmospheric moisture movements in the US over more than three decades. Their research showed that in the southwestern and southern plains, moisture in the atmosphere travels 30 to 50 miles (50 to 80km) farther than it did 35 years ago, staying aloft for an extra two to four hours before falling as rain. Continue reading...
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We all have bits of DNA from a long-lost “ghost ancestor” inside us – and by putting all the different bits together, we might be able to reconstruct their genome
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Smallpox affected Inca people after the arrival of Spanish conquistadorsFototeca Gilardi/Getty ImagesDNA samples collected from Inca mummies have confirmed the presence of a strain of smallpox that first emerged in Europe.“We interpreted this as the first direct molecular evidence of smallpox introduction into the Americas through European colonisation,” says Shigeki Nakagome at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Read more How a surge in ancient plagues 5000 years ago shaped humanitySmallpox was the scourge of humanity for centuries until its eradication in the 1980s, through vaccination, from all but a few high-security medical laboratories. Severe strains of the virus had a mortality rate of up to a third and left survivors with scars from the blisters and scabs that cover the skin and fill with pus. Advertisement if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }The disease was particularly brutal in parts of the world colonised by Europeans, such as Australia and the Americas, where Indigenous populations had no natural immunity, resulting in millions of deaths.In the Americas, historical reports record that smallpox began devastating Indigenous communities in the early 16th century, after the arrival of European colonists. Free newsletter Sign up to The Earth Edition Sign up to newsletterMatthew Ward at the University of Dundee in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the new research, says the waves of epidemics, including smallpox, that spread across the Americas were some of the most important events in history. “These diseases killed perhaps 95 per cent of the Indigenous population of the Americas and allowed for European colonisation,” he says.Nakagome and his colleagues studied samples of bone from mummies found at an archaeological site known as Camarones 9 in northern Chile, discovered in 1957. Over subsequent decades, 41 mummified bodies wrapped in blankets and buried with grave goods were recovered from the site.“While the original aim was to study the human DNA, we also searched for DNA from ancient pathogens,” says Nakagome. “That is when we discovered fragments matching the smallpox virus in two individuals.”The first was a woman who was 30 to 35 years old at the time of death, and the second, an 18-to-20-year-old man, was revealed by carbon dating to have died between 1492 and 1631.By reconstructing the virus’s genomes and comparing them with other ancient and modern smallpox viruses, the team found that they belonged to a lineage of smallpox that includes early medieval and early modern European strains. Read more Surprising skeletons prompt a radical rethink of Egyptian pyramidsThe discovery adds weight to the possibility that small skin lesions on the trunks of the mummies, previously attributed to chronic arsenic exposure, may in fact have been the distinctive pustules that scar the skin of smallpox victims.“This finding allowed us to identify a small group of people impacted by the virus for which no historical record exists,” says team member Constanza de la Fuente Castro at the University of Chile in Santiago. Before the new research, the pathogen was known only from historical accounts of large-scale outbreaks, she says.The work was particularly sensitive because of the disturbance of the original remains and the loss of material during analysis, both considered extremely controversial subjects to Indigenous people and the scientific community. “We never forget that behind every DNA extraction is a person, not a data point,” says de la Fuente Castro.Ward welcomed the new research. “Understanding exactly what was killing native peoples and why they were so susceptible to epidemic disease is a vitally important issue,” he says.Historians are now trying to understand how Europeans deliberately or inadvertently fuelled the spread of epidemics like smallpox, he says. “Without these epidemics, colonisation of the Americas would have been very different.”Journal Reference: Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aee6957 
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Genetic tests of mammoth remains have found a stark contrast in the sex ratio between sites where the animals died naturally and those associated with humans, offering hints about how our ancestors hunted
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A tiny sensor that unfolds within the body could continuously monitor our heart activity and breathing after showing promise in rats
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Rebecca Skloot told the story of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells were taken without her permission in a bestselling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Reading it left Alison George with an uneasy feeling - so she spoke to Lacks's family
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Networks of pipes carrying chilled water have proven to be an efficient way to cool hospitals and universities. Now, they are expanding into cities as heatwaves increase in the US and Europe
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A treatment that turns off the bit of the immune system that goes haywire in Guillain-Barré syndrome may be the first targeted therapy approved for the autoimmune condition
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Three problems that are out of reach for conventional computers have been cracked by quantum computers and show how important the machines could become for scientific research
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Certain sleeping positions can lead to babies developing flattened heads, and an analysis of ancient skulls from Italy reveals that this condition affected people in the 9th century BC
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The cosmological principle is the foundation of modern cosmology – but its usefulness doesn’t necessarily make it true, says columnist Leah Crane
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Analysis of samples collected from carcasses found traces of toxic chemical compound, says Kenya Wildlife ServiceThe recent deaths of 15 elephants near a park in southern Kenya in the past month were likely caused by the animals ingesting pesticides used on nearby tomato farms, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has said.Erustus Kanga, the agency’s director general, told Citizen TV that analysis of samples collected from the carcasses had found traces of cyanide, a chemical compound used in farming as a predator control poison and a pest fumigant, which has also been used by poachers. Continue reading...
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Wild Inside looks back on the incredible year when an escaped zoo owl managed to bring New Yorkers together Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl gained a cult following after leaving his life in captivity at the Central Park zoo in 2023 and surviving, against all odds, for more than a year as a free bird in Manhattan.Birdwatchers tracked his every move, capturing his vast wingspan and luminous orange eyes with their cameras. His fans got tattoos in his honor. And now, Wild Inside, a new documentary chronicling Flaco’s year about town, is set to premiere this week. Continue reading...
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Boom in migrating moth sightings put down to hot weather, strong winds and food scarcity in Europe He had just sat down to dinner in the garden when a speedy visitor whizzed by – a “grey lump with orange wings”, recalled Luke Burstow, from Sussex. It was a hummingbird hawk-moth, a flying insect that migrates to the UK from continental Europe and north Africa.“I was like: ‘Wow!’,” said the software project manager. “I didn’t even know they existed.” Continue reading...
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Led by the Environment Agency - more than 35 officers from five organisations took part in an intelligence-led operation.
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More than 150 years after Darwin’s finches helped reshape biology, Galápagos plants are exposing another evolutionary surprise. Giant daisies repeatedly developed similar heat-tolerant leaf shapes, but each lineage used a different combination of genes. Researchers also found major genetic differences among isolated populations, suggesting new species may be forming right now.
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A fossil overlooked for nearly 80 years has revealed a previously unknown crocodile relative that lived 210 million years ago in what is now New Mexico. Named Eosphorosuchus lacrimosa, the jackal-sized predator had a reinforced skull, powerful jaw muscles, and a short snout built for tackling larger prey.
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As Mohenjo-daro prospered, the gap between its richest and poorest households actually shrank. Its shared infrastructure, fair trade systems, and lack of powerful royal elites suggest that equality may have helped fuel the ancient city’s success.
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Songbirds appear to have evolved through rare explosions of change separated by long periods of slower development. Many of those bursts lined up with major climate shifts, suggesting that environmental upheaval can reshape life in powerful ways.
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Nature, Published online: 30 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10939-0Somatic mutations reveal the ontogeny of microglia in human aging
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Nature, Published online: 30 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10920-xAuthor Correction: Sleep chart of biological ageing clocks in middle and late life
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