The battle against the deadly ash dieback disease has received an important boost after scientists unscrambled the genetic blueprint of a tree with an extremely rare resistance to the killer fungus.

Serves 4-6

Shares in Tate & Lyle sank to the bottom of the FTSE 100 index today after the sweeteners group admitted that high corn prices would eat into its profits this year.

Learn how to make paint, then use it to depict images of the landscape on a holiday in Almeria, Spain.

Imports of woodchip from foreign ash trees should be banned in an attempt to avoid the spread of the devastating ash dieback disease, a member of the Environment Select Committee has said.

The deadly Chalara fungus threatens ash trees, but the dead wood will provide a cornucopia of invertebrates for birds to feed on

A beautiful book could change attitudes to Britain's great variety of mushrooms

Britain needs a radical rethink of its defences against emerging plant diseases brought in from abroad, such as the chalara fungus now threatening ash trees, the Environment Secretary, Owen Patterson, said.

Britain has already had twice as many tree plagues in this century as it did in the whole of the last

A ban on the import of ash trees has been imposed in a bid to stop the spread of a “devastating disease”, the Government said today.

Two pharmacy companies in the Boston area plan to cease operations as a “precautionary move” after an outbreak of meningitis linked to tainted medication killed 12 people.

More than 17,000 vials of an injectable steroid that has been linked to 35 cases of meningitis, five of them fatal, were sent to doctors' offices and clinics in 23 states over the summer, health officials said yesterday.

As anyone who has studied those academically certified case histories of Stone Age man, The Flintstones and Captain Caveman, will know, foraging has been going on since prehistory. Bish-bash-bosh with the club and you've got a larvely bit of woolly mammoth for tea.