Birds and bees: why new buildings need to support the natural world

By Becky Thomas, Senior Teaching Fellow in Ecology, Royal Holloway University of London

Nature can thrive in cities with the right opportunities, and some English councils are working to help develop homes for wildlife within new buildings.

New planning laws in Brighton and Hove now require developers to install bricks for bees and swifts into all new buildings taller than five metres. These are hollow bricks with an entrance hole for birds, or bricks with lots of small holes to allow tubes for nesting bees. Hackney Council has

Read complete article

~	In Brazil, the intelligence services spied on over 300,000 citizens during the military dictatorship

~	Dark matter: our new experiment aims to turn the ghostly substance into actual light

~	The politics stopping the UK from opening a youth mobility scheme with Europe

~	Tarantino abandons his tenth film – five other times Hollywood giants cancelled big projects

~	Jordan has long been a beacon of stability in the Middle East – but that looks to be changing

~	Male baldness is often trivialised – our research shows it should be taken seriously

~	To tackle climate change Labour must rebuild the planning system – not ‘bulldoze’ it

~	US drugs regulator gives LSD ‘breakthrough’ status for treating anxiety – why this is so significant

~	I contributed to the Misogyny In Music report – it’s sadly unsurprising that its recommendations have been rejected

~	Spotify just made a record profit. What can the platform do now to maintain momentum?