Sex cells: egg and sperm

THE BLACK-CAPPED chickadee is wonderfully onomatopoeic. When the diminutive songbird, which is Canada’s answer to the great tit, spots a great-horned owl perched in a tree, it broadcasts a shrill ‘chi

How far can you run? One kilometre? Five? 10 perhaps? Maybe you’re fit enough to run a half-marathon without too much fuss. Possibly even a full one. Whatever your record for distance might be, it’s n

A new book of bird photography celebrates not only the avian world, but the photographers using creative techniques to produce original artworks, from characterful studio portraits to eye-catching abstracts, writes Graeme Green

What extent do mundane domestic tasks ...

Galls, which can range from the delicately beautiful to hideously unattractive bulbous growths, are among Nature’s most intriguing phenomena, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee

Mankind may be tribal and sociable by nature, yet the ‘bliss of solitude’–a state previously reserved for hermits– is the key to achieving inner peace, says Laura Parker