Whatever your outside space – garden, balcony or window box – you can turn it into a haven for nature with a pint-sized pond and a slowworm sunbed

It is easy to feel hopeless about the future of British wildlife. The 2023 State of Nature report found that one in six species are at risk of extinction, with the groups most under threat including plants, birds, amphibians and reptiles, fungi and land mammals. But many of us can do something simple to help: gardening.

“There are 23m gardens in Britain, so we can make a real difference,” says Rob Stoneman from the Wildlife Trusts. Gardens cover a bigger area than all the UK’s nature reserves combined, he says. “If you haven’t got a garden, perhaps you could have a window box, or get involved in a community garden, or apply for an allotment.”

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Callingcurlew23/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Callingcurlew23/Getty Images

For generations the Gurung community in Taap, about 175km (110 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu, and other villages in the districts of Lamjung and Kaski, have scoured the steep Himalayan cliffs for honey. The villagers say the proceeds, split among them, are drying up as the number of hives has declined over the past decade, although some also earn a living from growing crops of rice, corn, millet and wheat

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

💾

© Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

By studying bees and their honey near decomposing human tissue, researchers at George Mason University hope to give crime scene investigators a new tool for finding the hidden dead.

© Matailong Du for The New York Times

Meet the “bucket of doom” and other methods to manage mosquitoes and ticks.