Environment

They say elephants never forget, but crafty squirrels can remember how they got into a garden birdfeeder... two years later. And they are also able to use those skills to solve a redesigned version of the same test within half a minute. The intelligence of the pesky rodents is well known, but the new findings shed fresh light on just why they are such a nuisance. Despite their amusing antics, keeping neighbourhood grey squirrels out of a birdfeeder is usually...

A trillion tonne iceberg has broken away from the Antarctic ice shelf in what has been described by scientists as an event which will change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula forever. Researchers have been monitoring a huge crack in the Larsen C Ice Shelf for some time and say the iceberg, which is more than a quarter the size of Wales, was "hanging by a thread". The 5,800 square kilometre (2,200 square mile) mass weighing more than a trillion tonnes has now...

Fish are shrinking because of climate change, a leading marine ecologist has warned. By 2050, the size of fish could shrink by 10 – 20 per cent, Dr William Cheung, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, forecast. Dr Cheung, who gave a keynote address at the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles at Exeter University this week, said some fish in the North Sea, including haddock, were already getting smaller. He...

  The world's first car running on a biofuel made from WHISKY residue has had its first successful test drive. The fuel - biobutanol - is a brand new type of sustainable fuel and is designed to be a direct replacement for petrol and diesel. It is produced from draff - the sugar-rich kernels of barley which are soaked in water to facilitate the fermentation process necessary for whisky production. The other main ingredient is pot ale, the copper-containing yeasty...

  Thousands of twitchers have flocked to a remote quarry on the edge of a village to try and get a glimpse of a bird rarely spotted in the UK. Bird watchers came out in their numbers when they descended on the site in order to get a sighting of the European bee-eater. The yellow, blue and brown beauty is more often found in southern Europe and North Africa, and the last time one was spotted in Nottinghamshire was back...

  An extremely rare breed of seahorse has been found in British waters. The Short Snouted Seahorse - scientific name Hippocampus Hippocampus - was found by experts off the coast of Devon. Its native habitat is the south west waters but there has been a sharp decline in sightings and it is currently endangered. It is now normally found in the Mediterranean and grows to between 7cm and 13cm long. Mark Parry, community Seagrass initiative project manager at the National...

GMB members are angry enough to have given a mandate for the earliest possible strike date The first ever Sellafield Firefighters’ strike will go ahead this month after talks between GMB, the union for nuclear workers, and Sellafield Ltd broke down. Discussions lasted just 30 minutes – including two adjournments. GMB members are so angry they have given a mandate for the earliest possible strike date later this month. The Sellafield Strike Committee will decide tomorrow the date for the...

  A new colony of Asian Hornets has been found in the Channel Islands - fuelling fears for the UK's native bee population. The invasive insect has reappeared on Jersey less than a year after they were first spotted on nearby Alderney. A colony - believed to have contained 6,000 insects - was discovered last week in a shed in Fliquet on Jersey and quickly exterminated by beekeepers. But experts now face a race against time to control the spreading...

  Campaigners protesting against a planned incinerator have staged a rally at council offices - NAKED. Residents staged a nude protest outside Shire Hall in Gloucester in an attempt to reverse a decision on the controversial plan. The small group brandished placards outside the building on Tues in the latest episode in the long-running battle with the county council over the construction. As well as putting post it notes on the windows of the building, two protesters bared all for...