The Independent

The Great British Freeze – a user's guide

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Know your frost from your glaze? David Randall helps you to bluff your way through winter

Dustin Hoffman produces and stars in the HBO drama 'Luck'

Rein man: did Dustin Hoffman harm horses in his new drama?

10 February 2012 12:00 AM

Big-budget HBO series targeted by campaigners after two star performers had to be put down

Tilikum the orca performs at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida

Performing whales are not 'slaves', says US judge

10 February 2012 12:00 AM

The grand emancipation of America's popular performing orcas has been postponed, thanks to the not-so-startling conclusion of a district court judge in San Diego that, on balance, whales and humans are not the same thing.

Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: For the first time, we can see spring coming from 4,000 miles away

09 February 2012 12:00 AM

Over six months, the mystery of where cuckoos winter has revealed itself

Tallest tree in UK declared

08 February 2012 05:22 PM

Measuring a tree the same height as eight double decker buses is no easy task but not one the National Trust has shied away from.

Video: Crocodiles have their teeth brushed

08 February 2012 11:35 AM

Endangered Gharial crocodiles have their teeth brushed to prevent fungus growing, at a breeding programme in Nepal.

The Scouse mouser and other turf paws

08 February 2012 12:00 AM

It couldn't have been a late-doors substitution – Monday night's Liverpool v Spurs game had only been going for 11 minutes when an extra player emerged on the turf. An extra player... with a couple of extra legs. And a tail.

Olympic clean-up is complete, says Environment Agency

06 February 2012 12:00 AM

Work to clean up the Olympic site and create the largest urban park in Europe for more than 100 years has been completed, the Environment Agency said yesterday.

Sheep watch as they stand in snow that has settled on Dartmoor on February 2, 2012 near Princetown, England. The UK is currently in the grips of a cold snap which has seen the Met Office upgrading its cold weather alert to level three, meaning 'severe' conditions and forecasters warning of temperatures of minus -11C, with the possiblity of snow hitting London and the south east.

Minus 11 as UK braces for widespread snow

03 February 2012 01:00 PM

Britain is lying in wait for widespread snow this weekend after another bitterly cold day in which temperatures in some places struggled to get above freezing.

Bird numbers plummet around stricken Fukushima plant

03 February 2012 12:00 AM

Researchers working around Japan's disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life.

Snow-covered trees can be seen near the western German city of Winterberg on February 1, 2012. The cold front is expected to hit parts of the UK this weekend.

Weekend snow warning as UK shivers

02 February 2012 04:18 PM

The Met Office has raised fears for the elderly and ill by issuing a serious England-wide weather alert as the nation shivers in freezing conditions.

Shetland oil drilling contract agreed

02 February 2012 11:47 AM

Oil giant BP has announced a multimillion-pound contract with a specialist offshore engineering firm for the second phase of a massive project off the Shetland Islands.

Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: Just because Nessie is a myth doesn't mean we can't dream

02 February 2012 12:00 AM

Nature has powers of persistence, even when all evidence points to a vanishing

A team from the University of Florida with a162lb (73kg) Burmese python captured in the Everglades

Pythons are squeezing the life out of the Everglades, scientists warn

01 February 2012 12:00 AM

If you go down to the Florida Everglades today, you're in for a big surprise: in the past 12 years, 90 per cent of the wild mammals which once roamed freely through the National Park have gone.