Flexible foxes can be found in almost any sort of terrain. Indeed, one species, the red fox or Vulpes vulpes, is the most widely distributed land carnivore of all, ranging from the Arctic to North Africa. And where its rivals stick to the countryside, these foxes have made themselves at home in modern towns and cities. Why is this?

May and June are typically peak months for tornadoes in North America. We asked Penn State meteorology professors Paul Markowski and Yvette Richardson to explain why tornadoes form, how to stay safe if you’re near one and whether climate change is affecting tornado patterns.

It might seem unlikely, but tiny grains of minerals can help tell the story of early Earth. And researchers studying those grains say that 4.4 billion years ago, Earth was a barren, mountainless place, and almost everything was under water. Only a handful of islands poked above the surface.

Insects navigate in much the same way that ancient humans did: using the sky. Their primary cue is the position of the sun, but insects can also detect properties of skylight (the blue light scattered by the upper atmosphere) that give them indirect information about the sun’s position. Skylight cues include gradients in brightness and colour across the sky and the way light is polarised by the atmosphere. Together, these sky “compass cues” allow many insect species to hold a stable course.

Most people assume if you’re unlucky enough to be bitten by a crocodile, then a severed limb or other severe trauma is all you have to worry about. But new research is emerging about serious infections you can catch from a bite that might kill you instead.

They say that trees live for thousands of years. Like many things that “they” say, there is a germ of truth in the saying (even though it is mostly false).

The appearance of vivid bluebell carpets in British woodlands is a sure and spectacular sign of spring. Bluebells – Hyacinthoides non-scripta (L.) Chouard ex Rothm – are Britain’s favourite wildflower and particularly fine carpets attract visitors to well-known sites such as Kew Gardens in London and Coed Cefn in Powys, Wales.

One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the world using fewer agrochemicals.

On a moonless night, light levels can be more than 100m times dimmer than in bright daylight. Yet while we are nearly blind and quite helpless in the dark, cats are out stalking prey, and moths are flying agilely between flowers on our balconies.

In North America when the leaves start to fall and the days get shorter, many birds head south for warmer weather. Only a small number of species stick it out for the winter. If you’re out in the woods in a typical February, it’s a pretty quiet place.

Silk is a high performance protein-baed fibre that is naturally produced by invertebrates. The most well-known is the domesticated silk moth (Bombyx mori), whose silk has been used in fabrics for more than 4,000 years.

When it comes to alternative and renewable energy, wind power is expected to occupy the second-largest share of the market in the future (after solar). But just how exactly do wind turbines work?

Scientists have known for some time that the Earth goes through cycles of climatic change. Owing to changes in Earth’s orbit, geological factors, and/or changes in Solar output, Earth occasionally experiences significant reductions in its surface and atmospheric temperatures. This results in long-term periods of glaciation, or what is more colloquially known as an “ice age”.