Sustainability
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A less toxic alternative to synthetic pesticides
Research in biopesticides is an important pursuit.
In the 1940s, scientists discovered the insect-killing properties of synthetic chemical compounds, including DDT, chl...
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Scientists want your underwater shots
Great Barrier Reef snaps form part of a citizen science project.
A new program directed by researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is calling on citizen scientists t...
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Native New Yorkers
The Big Apple contains a substantial native forest.
In New York you can’t see the forests for the buildings, but the forests are there. The expansive yet overlooked "fo...
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Conversation
Naming names, and why it's important
Taxonomy isn’t glamorous, but it is critical.
Museums are cathedrals of science, but they are under threat worldwide as part of a malaise of undervaluing museum co...
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2.5 billion years’ of evolutionary history lost
Replenishing diversity will take more time than we have.
The world has lost 2.5 billion years’ worth of unique evolutionary history in the past 130,000 years, say the authors...
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Glyphosate linked to bee deaths
Concerns over the impact of the world’s most common weed-killer.
There’s more bad news for glyphosate, the active ingredient of Roundup, with a recent study suggesting the widely use...
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Ending the age of plastic
As plastic pollution covers the globe, can science provide solutions?
They look quite natural in the sand. Lentil-sized white blobs, sometimes a little translucent, not quite perfectly ro...
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Switch to fish and veg to save water
Water-usage analysis points to the need to reform diet.
Switching from a meat-heavy diet to one full of vegetables and seafood will substantially reduce water consumption – ...
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Cities drive natural selection
Evolutionary biologists refute that cities are “anti-life”.
The same evolutionary mechanisms identified 150 years ago by Charles Darwin are active within the world’s great citie...
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Five nations take the lion’s share of the world’s fish
Data reveals that global fishing is deeply inequitable.
Just five nations — China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain — are responsible for 86% of the global fishing haul,...
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Conversation
Compostable plastics may not be better
Evidence of benefits of disposable plastics unclear.
As companies move to get rid of single-use plastic bags and bans on microbeads are coming into force, new biodegradab...
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Lack of GM in wheat puts global crop at risk
A genetic fix is in reach, but the will to take action is lacking.
Genetic modification of wheat for disease resistance could help stabilise global food production if the will can be f...