
The blushing Englishman who stole nuclear secrets from the US
11 October 2017
William Penney planned the Nagasaki bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, and kept the UK in the nuclear race. But was he a master of bluffing or a master spy?
11 October 2017
William Penney planned the Nagasaki bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, and kept the UK in the nuclear race. But was he a master of bluffing or a master spy?
13 June 2012
Some say humanity's ever-rising environmental impact is about to go into reverse. Fact or just fantasy, asks Fred Pearce
24 February 2010
Every degree of warming caused directly by CO2 is amplified by feedback processes that could drive temperatures much higher
24 February 2010
We fix around 121 million tonnes of nitrogen a year, far more than nature does 鈥 and nature cannot cope
24 February 2010
Individual species may not matter much on their own, but collectively they form ecosystems that provide a range of vital "ecosystem services"
24 February 2010
There are approaching 100,000 different human-made chemical compounds in use around the world today, and many of them harm humans and wildlife
24 February 2010
With most of the culprit chemicals now banned, the worst of the danger has passed 鈥 but it has not entirely vanished
24 February 2010
More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means more is absorbed by the oceans, creating carbonic acid 鈥 bad news for animals with shells
24 February 2010
Half the world's tropical rainforests are gone, and large areas of grasslands once open to wildlife are now fenced in for livestock
24 February 2010
A quarter of the world's river systems no longer reach the ocean for at least part of the year. This is drying out swathes of the landscape