Wild animals are turning nocturnal to keep away from humans
Dozens of species all around the world are abandoning the day and becoming more active at night, to avoid contact with humans
Britain’s hedgehog population has fallen 66 per cent in 20 years
Britain only has 58 wild mammal species to start with, and many have declined sharply in number since 1995 – with hedgehogs suffering a particularly severe fall
Africa’s 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off
In the past decade most of the oldest baobabs, many of them sprouted over two millennia ago, have died unexpectedly and few new ones are sprouting
Europeans now burn more palm oil in their cars than they eat
Palm oil consumption in the EU jumped by 7 per cent in 2017 because it is increasingly used as a biofuel – driving the destruction of orangutans’ habitat
Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs caused massive global warming
The asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago caused dramatic climate change, which could mean we are underestimating how much the planet will warm in the coming centuries
Half of life on Earth has vanished since we arrived on the scene
The biomass of living organisms on the planet has halved since human civilisation began, and humans now outweigh all wild mammals tenfold
Chinese giant salamanders may already be virtually extinct
Researchers spent four years looking for Chinese giant salamanders and only found 24 – and that’s not even the worst bit of news
Harsh: Europe’s cannabis died just as the first farmers arrived
Cannabis – the source of the drug marijuana – virtually disappeared from Europe just as farmers arrived, so they didn’t get the chance to grow it for another 4500 years
The tides are getting stronger thanks to the shifting continents
The ocean tides are the strongest they have been for millions of years, and they will get stronger for several million years to come – because of the position of the continents
Stem cells may reveal how Neanderthal DNA works in modern humans
Many of us carry DNA inherited from Neanderthals, but we can’t be sure how it affects us. Stem cells with Neanderthal DNA could tell us