Plants really do respond to the way we touch them, scientists reveal

It's something that plant lovers have long suspected, but now Australian scientists have found evidence that plants really can feel when we're touching them. Not only that, but different sensations trigger a cascade of physiological and genetic...

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The Art of Landscaping a Volcano: At Tabacon Hot Springs

The art of landscaping doesn’t get hotter than at Arenal. One of Costa Rica’s seven historically active volcanoes – and the country’s most active until 2010 – the 1,633 meter-high Arenal is a baby at under 7,500 years old. Which might explain a temperament that can cause a heat of 89 degrees Celsius (192 Fahrenheit) at its base.

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The world according to tobacco consumption

To mark World No-Tobacco Day, we’ve mapped the world according to cigarette consumption.

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Perdita Rose

Perdita is a David Austin rose, and one of the first I planted in my garden, some ten years ago. The buds are pinkish, and the flowers open as a blush color and then grow whiter as they mature. It doesn't grow as large as my other roses, but I have it at the end of the row, where it is not overshadowed by its more raucous cousins.

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The Slideshow that Saved the World: An Oral History of “An Inconvenient Truth”

Al Gore got stuck on a scissor lift. Studio execs fell asleep at a screening. And everybody hated the title. The amazing true story of the most improbable — and important — film of our time.

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What Are You?

So. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.

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Bumblebees' Little Hairs Can Sense Flowers' Electric Fields

Flowers generate weak electric fields, and a new study shows that bumblebees can actually sense those electric fields, using the tiny hairs on their fuzzy little bodies to tell the difference between flowers and locate pollen.

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Meet the 'courtroom dogs' who help child crime victims tell their stories

Getting child crime victims to open up is never easy for investigators and asking them to tell their stories to a jury can be brutally traumatizing. To help these kids overcome their fears, some courtrooms across the country are employing comfort dogs, canine companions who take the stand alongside them to calm and bolster their spirits. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.

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Inside the World of Fire Ants!

A song of ants and fire… and ant-decapitating flies

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David Mitchell buries latest manuscript for a hundred years

Mitchell is the second contributor to the Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library project, for which 1,000 trees were planted two years ago in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest. Starting with Margaret Atwood, who last year handed over the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon, each year for the next 100 years an author will deliver a piece of writing which will only be read in 2114, when the trees are chopped down to make paper on which the 100 texts will be printed.

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Australia’s censorship of Unesco climate report is like a Shakespearean tragedy

Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef is clearly at risk from climate change, so why would Unesco agree to censor its own report?

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American Archeologists Need To Get Wet

Sea levels were lower during the ice age, when the first humans made their way into North America. That means the next big find is underwater.

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A Kangaroo Attacked a Woman on a Bike and Burst Her Breast Implants

"He was a lovely kangaroo until he did what he did," said the South Australian woman.

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Why Some Flies Have Mega Sperm

Ridiculously long sperm evolved in fruit flies because picky females want only the best genes, researchers found.

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Harvard Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

The chemist who gave us the artificial leaf has genetically engineered bacteria to absorb hydrogen and carbon dioxide and convert them into alcohol fuel. When Harvard Professor of Energy Daniel G. Nocera announced he was working with bacteria last year, other scientists cautioned it would be difficult to achieve a productive level of efficiency. At the time, Nocera was aiming for 5 percent efficiency—about 5 times better than plants. This month at the University of Chicago, he announced his bug converts sunlight ten times more efficiently than plants.

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El Niño is over – but it leaves nearly 100 million people short of food

Scientists say sea temperatures are back to normal, but from southern Africa to southern Asia, droughts and heatwaves have left a trail of devastation.

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GoPro View of Cheetah Run

Savanna from the Zoos Cat Ambassador allows the trainers to put a harness that holds a GoPro on her so we can get the cheetahs view running full speed. We think this might be the first time this has been accomplished with a cheetah.

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If climate scientists are in it for the money, they’re doing it wrong

One of the more unfortunate memes that makes an appearance whenever climate science is discussed is the accusation that, by hyping their results, climate scientists are ensuring themselves steady paychecks, and may even be enriching themselves.

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Kingfisher

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Let Them Drown

“This is happening because the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries in the world think they are going to be OK, that someone else is going to eat the biggest risks, that even when climate change turns up on their doorstep, they will be taken care of.” By Naomi Klein.

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The Bittersweet Life Story of a Captive Orangutan

Rejected by her mother, Wattana had to learn from the humans around her. She has lived in zoos in Belgium, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Her biographer, Chris Herzfeld, spent time with her at the Jardines des Plantes in Paris.

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A Biography of the Tea Bush

There’s a hoary adage that money doesn’t grow on trees. With tea, it really does, on just a single type of plant, the Camellia sinensis. Left in its natural state, it will flower, just like decorative camellias, and can grow as high as 100 feet and live for well over 100 years. Tea farms keep it at just over a meter and shape it into a round table form, to make it easy to pluck. It has a productive life of, typically, 60 years.

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These Lovely Maps Trace the Most Picturesque Routes of Every City in the World

Mapbox's Eric Fischer has been working on the "Geotaggers' World Atlas" for five years, using locations of photos uploaded on Flickr over a decade. In his city maps, which now span the world, he connects the dots between subsequent photos taken by a photographer—representing their path in sketchy lines that criss-cross across the city.

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When the River Rises: The Wimberley Floods of 2015

The Wimberley fire chief pulled on his tactical boots and stepped out into the rain. He climbed into his pickup truck and drove down a bluff, toward the river. Chief Carroll Czichos could have found his way there blindfolded. He was 62, with blue eyes and gray hair, and had lived along the Blanco River all his life. He knew its rhythms well enough to predict with surprising accuracy when the river would rise. The Blanco, after all, ran right through Texas’s “Flash Flood Alley,” one of the most notorious floodplains in the country.

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When the River Rises: The Wimberley Floods of 2015

In Texas’s Flash Flood Alley, it only takes a few hours to cause lifelong devastation.

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Watch lightning bolts creep through the sky in slow motion

A new high-speed camera captures a series of lightning strikes in remarkable detail

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The Keyhole Seven

When a group of canyoneering beginners were swept away in a flash flood last September, it was the worst disaster in Zion's 97-year history. And it illustrates a growing question: How far should national parks go to keep their visitors safe?

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China is encouraging its citizens to eat less meat — and that could be a big win for the climate

An updated set of dietary guidelines just released by the Chinese government could be a boon not only for public health, say some environmentalists, but also for the environment. They’re arguing that the new recommendations have the potential to reduce China’s meat consumption, or at least slow its growth, which can help save land and water resources and put a substantial dent in global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Chimps filmed grieving for dead friend

In an extraordinary last act, one ape even tends to the body of the deceased

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Chicken embryo tests can prevent practice of gassing billions of cockerels

The current practice of gassing billions of male chicks within a day of hatching because they cannot lay eggs could be stopped thanks to a new embryo gender test. Globally some 3.2 billion cockerels are killed within hours of breaking free of their eggs each year. Now Dutch scientists have developed a simple test that identifies the sex of chicken embryos within eggs, meaning males could be terminated long before hatching.

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After Tens of Thousands of Pigeons Vanish, One Comes Back

At first the whole thing seemed preposterous. No way this could happen.

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Mountain Monastery

Located near the city of Paro in the Kingdom of Bhutan, the Tigers Nest Monastery (or Taktsang Palphug) is located 3000 meters high up in the Himalayan Mountains. Mountain Monastery by David Lazar

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How England's First Feline Show Countered Victorian Snobbery About Cats

The 1871 cat show ushered in a new era of appreciation for the furry rat-catchers.

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Thailand Begins Planting Millions of Trees by Dropping "Seed Bombs"

Thailand has found a unique way to regenerate its forests.

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Lightning Strike Hits Children's Birthday Party

A lightning strike in Paris has left 11 people in hospital, including four in a life-threatening condition. The victims were attending in a children's party at Parc Monceau in the city's north-west on Saturday afternoon when a thunderstorm struck. The group tried to take shelter under a tree, but were hit by lightning.

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Tropical storm forming in Atlantic cuts path toward South Carolina

The first tropical storm to threaten the United States this year is expected to slam into the coast of South Carolina during the Memorial Day weekend, bringing heavy rain and strong winds, federal officials said on Saturday.

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Sea sponge the size of a minivan discovered in ocean depths off Hawaii

Scientists find immense creature 2,100m below surface of the ocean; researcher says it is ‘probably in the order of centuries to millennia old’

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A River’s Tale

On the journey of Alice Albinia, tracing the mighty Indus from sea to source. By Saba Imtiaz.

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Donald Trump Tells Drought-stricken California: 'There Is No Drought'

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring that: “There is no drought.” Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea “to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.” “We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump said to cheers at a rally that drew thousands.

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Mapping the Creatures Living Beneath Our Feet

A new atlas catalogs the strange and spectacular species that live in the soil.

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Edouard Martinet | Insectophile

Take one workshop full of junk and a Frenchman with an eye for detail (not to mention an obsession with bugs) and you will find the most eclectic mix of metal insects this side of a sci-fi novel. This short documentary follows Edouard Martinet's patient and extraordinary process as he creates sculptures that are utterly beautiful, distinctly creepy and somehow completely true to nature. All this despite his medium being piles of bent metal and old rusty bicycles.

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Mystery of Morbid Aztec Skull Masks Solved by Archaeologists

Eight masks made from human skulls were found at a temple in Tenochtitlán, Mexico, over three decades ago. Their purpose and origins have always been somewhat mysterious. But a new archaeological analysis suggests that these morbid masks may have been made from slain warriors and other elite members of ancient Aztec society.

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DNA 'tape recorder' to trace cell history

Researchers invent a DNA "tape recorder" that can trace the family history of every cell in a body.

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Some Humans Migrated Back To Africa 45,000 Years Ago

Our species evolved in Africa. But after examining the genome of a 35,000-year-old human skull unearthed in Romania, researchers say some populations migrated back to northern Africa from western Asia during the Early Upper Paleolithic starting around 45,000 years ago. The findings were published in Scientific Reports last week. 

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The 51C heatwave that's melting India

A severe heatwave has set off new records in India, so much so that the roads beneath pedestrians are literally melting like wet cement. Literally. In the footage above, pedestrians' footwear can be seen actually sinking into the tarmac as they walk due to how hot it is. For farmers in particular, the effects have been widespread and devastating, worsening poverty and even prompting suicide. The Indian government has estimated that as much as 25 per cent of the country - 330 million Indians - could be affected by the shortages.

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Ten-Year Gap in Major Hurricanes Continues

It has been a decade since the last major hurricane, Category 3 or higher, made landfall in the United States. This is the longest period of time for the United States to avoid a major hurricane since reliable records began in 1850. According to a NASA study, a 10-year gap comes along only every 270 years.

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200 years ago, we endured a 'year without a summer'

Snow in June, freezing temperatures in July, a killer frost in August: "The most gloomy and extraordinary weather ever seen," according to one Vermont farmer. Two centuries ago, 1816 became the year without a summer for millions of people in parts of North America and Europe, leading to failed crops and near-famine conditions. While they didn't know the chill's cause at the time, scientists and historians now know that the biggest volcanic eruption in human history, on the other side of the world...

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How rare are bright blue lobsters?

Canadian fishermen have been celebrating after catching two bright blue lobsters. But just how unusual is this?

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Don’t Pee in the Pool!

Most people would say that swimming pools smell like chlorine. But did you know that a pool that smells like chlorine is not actually a clean pool.

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'Arachnophobes love them': Sydney scientist's 'adorable' dancing spider discovery

A Sydney scientist discovers seven new species of incredible peacock spiders, and believes even the most extreme spider haters will find them cute.

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