Life, is ‘poor nasty brutish and short’ said Thomas Hobbes. Certainly, it’s no bed of roses. Natural selection should have equipped us to deal with fear and anxiety, but has it?

THE cuckoo, alas, has no respect for the ordinary decencies of family life; it lays its eggs in other birds’ nests.

World temperatures have been relatively stable for the last 17 years but now, according to the meteorologists, they are rising again.

Some years ago, Tom McDermott created a pond on his farm near Naas in Co Kildare. Up to 120 mallard roost there nowadays, attracted by the grain he puts out for them.

As part of a push to save the UK’s most endangered mammal, Scottish Wildcat Action has set up a website. 

Wind-farms and motorways generate noise, annoying people who live near them. In extreme cases, it’s claimed, the din may be a threat to health and well-being. Are wild creatures also affected by noise? Recent research suggests that they are.

Sixty-six million years after they disappeared from the face of the Earth, the dinosaurs have become animal celebrities; children everywhere are fascinated by them. 

HAINAN Island, which I visited a few years ago, is a crowded place, writes Richard Collins