Late cherry blossom

Evidence of climate change emerges from Japan

Trail of dust

Where water flows

The fittest survive

Warming threatens buildings

Culling the captive

Troubled waters

Extremely polluting form of phosphorus neglected by research

Colour display

Using microbes to detect metals in effluents

Rain revelation

New study stresses air currents within clouds are crucial

New arsenic filter

Removes pathogens and impurities, too

Nitrogen threatens biodiversity

Atmospheric levels damagingly high in developing world

Torrid times

The 20th century was the hottest in 1,200 years

Sorting waste

Sands of time

Large portions of cultivable land may be lost to the desert in northwest China by end-1997

Tracking elles

Danger zone

Cancer in children has increased following radioactive leakage from a plant in France

Crying wolf?

A plan to reintroduce wolves in Scotland's forests runs into rough weather

A cleansing effect

A new bacterium can convert a toxic groundwater pollutant into a harmless hydrocarbon

Packaging that melts

Raising a stink

Air quality in poultry farms in Europe suffers badly due to ammonia from chicken droppings

New angle on recycling

Wastefrom animal farms can now be recycled into fish food

No monkey business, this

Monkeys are more knowledgeable than humans about the medicinal value ofplants

Pure warmth

Positive impact

Carbon dioxide, maligned for degrading the atmosphere, also enhances vegetative cover

Pollution changeth

Industrial pollution can cause genetic alteration in species