Nature Hub

   From - BBC News  By -  Louise Parry  - BBC News, Buckinghamshire Edited by - Amal Udawatta Getty Images The current HS2 chairman asked "did people think about the bats?" when setting the project's budget A special barrier that will be built to protect rare   bats will cost £100m, according to the chairman of HS2 Ltd. Sir Jon Thompson told a rail industry conference the bat protection structure in Buckinghamshire was needed to appease Natural England, as bats are legally protected in the UK. The 1km (0.6 mile) curved barrier will cover the tracks alongside Sheephouse Wood near Calvert in Buckinghamshire, to prevent bats being disturbed by high-speed trains. Sir Jon said there was "no evidence that high-speed trains interfere with bats". "We call it a shed," he said. "This shed, you're not going to believe this, cost more than £100m to protect the bats in this wood." Natural England said it had not required HS2 to "adopt this struct

 From - BBC News By -Sophie Hardach  ,   Editted by - Amal Udawatta Getty Images Researchers are unlocking the ancient secrets of the world's most diverse marine habitat. Could their discoveries help us save our oceans? In an office wing of the Natural History Museum in London, two researchers slide open a plain storage cupboard door to reveal a hidden treasure: shelves of fossilised corals, up to  30 million years old , from the world's most diverse marine habitat. Some look like petrified brains, others like rocks with filigrane patterns. "I like to look at things in the past and see if we can learn lessons from them," says Ken Johnson, with an eye on the fossils. Johnson is a palaeontologist and principal researcher at the museum's Earth Sciences department. Next to him stands Nadia Santodomingo, a marine biologist and geoscientist, and curator at the museum. They and their team collected the fossils in Indonesia more than a decade ago, working with colleagues

  From National Geography   By  Jonathan Lambert Edited by - Amal Udawatta These new methods, from parasites to gene editing, control mosquitoes without pesticides. Aedes aegypti  mosquitoes (shown) carry a slew of diseases, including the virus that causes dengue fever. Researchers have tweaked their genes to control mosquito populations in areas at greater risk for dengue cases. Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic, Photo Ark  global fight against mosquitoes and the diseases they carry is stalling.  For decades, the deployment of anti-mosquito tools, including insecticides and bed nets, helped alleviate the burden of diseases like malaria and dengue. But in recent years, progress has slowed, and even reversed, as  mosquito populations evolve around these interventions . Climate change is stoking the spread of mosquito-borne disease too, as shifting temperatures expand skeeters’ range. Last year, the U.S. saw its first  locally transmitted case of malaria  since 2003, and th

     From - BBC World NEWS  By - India Bourke -  Edited by -Amal Udawatta Share Getty images Messerschmidt 109 and scuba diver at Ile de Planier, Marseille, France (Credit: Getty images) Among the 80-year-old sunken D-Day wrecks that line the coasts of Britain and France, wildlife is thriving on the wreckage of war. Stretching for miles along England's Devonshire coast, between the sea and a patchwork of hills, lies the shingly expanse of Slapton Sands.  Humpback whales  can occasionally be spotted offshore. A thatched pub at the far end sells fish and chips in an oak-beamed bar. And each year, at dawn on 27 April, hundreds of dead soldiers rise up out of the waves and march across the fields. Or so goes a local ghost-story. The tale has its roots in tragedy. In the spring of 1944, the coastline had become a training area for American troops. Their mission was to complete a  secret, full-scale practice  of the upcoming D-Day invasion of Utah Beach in Nazi-occupied France – part of