ECOSYSTEMS ARE complex things, and monitoring their health is hard. To track every species would be impossible, so ecologists commonly focus on those that, like canaries in coal mines, are thought to ...

Healthy adults who have a good constitution and have a healthy heart are being called forth to donate samples of their faeces to science. The donors would be screened rigorously before they can be ...

The African wild dog is one of Africa’s most endangered predators. African wild dogs are highly elusive, avoiding human contact and utilising vast, remote territories to remain out of sight. Current ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

SO-CALLED ORGANIC crops, grown without recourse to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, are credited with miraculous properties by many of their fans. Unfortunately, there is little scientific ...

Dog faeces can still be troublesome thousands of years after being dumped. Archaeologists can end up in deep doodoo if they mistake it for human faeces. But now an artificial intelligence system has ...

A study has claimed to show that modern ‘green’ products recycled from human excreta are excellent – and importantly, safe – fertilizers to use on food crops. The idea of using human urine and faeces ...

Rabbits have a taste for their own faeces – and now we know why. The small mammals produce both soft and hard faeces, and will routinely eat the soft ones. It turns out that eating soft faeces helps ...