Representative Image (AI-generated) A wildfire that swept through the high-altitude alpine zone of Africa’s Rwenzori Mountains in 2012 has been identified as the first large-scale fire to strike the region in at least 12,000 years, according to a study published in Nature. By analysing ancient lake sediment cores (cylindrical samples of layered mud from the…

Ant Supercolony. Image Credit: Anagoria/Wikipedia The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) has created one of the most remarkable biological phenomena ever recorded: a super-colony stretching around 6,000 kilometres along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), these…

Eighteen-year-old Arya Satheesh, a high school student from Letterkenny in County Donegal, Ireland, has earned international recognition for inventing Eco Purge, a plant-based biodegradable plastic. The material is designed to help tackle the growing problem of microplastic pollution. As it naturally breaks down, Eco Purge releases specialised enzymes that are designed to help degrade nearby…