Latest news and analysis

Everyone loves a good bonus. None more so than the thousands of financiers across the globe who enjoyed ‘stonking’ payments in 2006.

What on earth are we thinking when we go into shops and buy lots of pointless stuff we just don’t need? John Naish says it’s not so much what’s on our minds, but which brain we use when we spend

Will the temptation of vast amounts of clean, tidal energy lead us to ignore the chance of serious environmental damage? Mark Anslow and Peter Clark report

Governments may be over-estimating global coal reserves, says US engineer

When communities are broken apart by migration towards towns and cities, rural life suffers.

It’s fresh, organic and locally produced. It’s hospital food, but not as we know it – yet. Dixe Wills meets the catering manager who’s transforming the canteen kitchen

New Mexico’s chilli farmers are under threat. The film 'Red, green of GE?' hears from those concerned about the potentially devastating effects GMO crops would have on the New Mexico chilli.

Biological rocket fuel they may be, but ‘sports’ drinks can be a danger to health in the long term. Pat Thomas reports

Tired of the treadmill? Bored of the exercise bike? Nicolette Loizou discovers a greener way to get fit

It’s versatile, environmentally friendly and has a 5,000-year-old pedigree in the fashion world. Laura Sevier can’t understand why it’s taken so long for hemp to hit the shops

Unpasteurised milk can be a divisive subject, says Laura Sevier, but most of what you hear about the white stuff is pure whitewash

Under cover of darkness, a dedicated team of activists is slowly rescuing unloved pockets of land from botanical meltdown. Olly Zanetti meets the guerrilla gardeners lighting up London.

Laura Sevier meets the man trying to broker a better relationship between God, man, science and the natural world.

It has been a long and bitter struggle. When locals who had for years enjoyed the peace and tranquillity of Thrupp lake at Radley, Oxfordshire, learned that it was to be filled with fly-ash from Didcot power station, they assumed that a small but vocal protest would help see off the plans.

A Vision for Science and Society, in today’s technological vista, sounds an honourable aim. Guy Cook reads between the lines of this new UK government paper