French farmers bring rural reality to Champs Elysées

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/french-farmers-champs-elysees

As the busiest, most traffic-friendly road in the French capital, there is usually very little that is field-like about the Champs Elysées, or Elysian Fields.

Today, however, the cars that usually speed through the famous avenue were brought to a halt and the cobblestones paved over with grass as la France profonde took over the most urban landscape in the country.

By bringing in 8,000 plots of earth and 150,000 plants to the city and installing them, amid sheep and cattle, along three-quarters of a mile of the thoroughfare, struggling farmers are attempting to highlight an aspect of French life which they believe is too often overlooked by Paris.

UN biodiversity report calls for global action to prevent destruction of nature

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/21/un-biodiversity-economic-report

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN's biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving "natural goods and services", such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

Honeybees: 3D images reveal life inside a live hive

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8682000/8682842.stm


Scientists have devised a new way to peer into the inner workings of a live honeybee colony, without disturbing the insects inside.

Cannes film festival review – Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may/16/over-your-cities-grass-will-grow
Sophie Fiennes has directed an intriguing, near-wordless documentary about the work of industrial artist Anselm Kiefer

Building almost from the ground up in a derelict silk factory, Kiefer devised an artistic project extending over acres: miles of corridors, huge studio spaces with ambitious landscape paintings and sculptures that correspond to monumental constructions in the surrounding woodland, and serpentine excavated labyrinths with great earthy columns that resemble stalagmites or termite mounds. Nowhere is it clear where the finished product definitively stands; perhaps it is all work in progress, a monumental concept-art organism.

Confronting the biodiversity crisis

In 2002, the world's governments agreed to significantly slow the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Time is almost up, and by most accounts they've failed. Now that climate change is emerging as one of biodiversity's greatest threats, scientists are proposing new ways to tackle the crisis. Hannah Hoag reports.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1005/full/climate.2010.38.html

Calls for zoo closures after rare Siberian tigress found drowned

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/calls-for-zoo-closures-after-rare-siberian-tigress-found-drowned-1954211.html

Campaigners have called for the phased closure of zoos after a Siberian tiger used for breeding purposes was found drowned in the enclosure of a zoo in Norfolk.

"There are so few cases where captive animals have been bred and brought back into the wild with success. Each time a situation like this occurs, it needs to be thoroughly investigated so that the public are made aware of the actual circumstances of the death and the necessity of the zoo – not be automatically led down the route of conservation. Zoos do not have a valid role any more. They are there purely for education purposes or a day out."

The comments mirror those of Angela Smith, the charities minister, who earlier this month denounced the concept of zoos, describing them as "relics of the Victorian era". Arguing that while certain venues "tried very hard", it was necessary to address the issue of animal welfare. Her comments were dismissed as "naive" by zoo managers while the Government announced that it had no plans to close any premises.

RADIOLARIAN SOFA BY LAZERIAN STUDIO

http://mocoloco.com/archives/013716.phpCorrugated cardboard furniture inspired by wasps' nests and sea organisms are the latest releases from Lazerian Studio. The Bravais Armchair and Radiolarian Sofa were produced for Interiors 2010 in Birmingham.

Campaign to save the Dormouse

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/entertainment/news/science/campaign-save-dormouse-$1170808.htm

Trufa by Anton García-Abril

http://www.dezeen.com/2010/04/27/trufa-by-anton-garcia-abril/

Called Trufa (Truffle), the project involved pouring concrete over hay bales stacked and burried inside soil from the surroundings.

Darius, the world's largest Rabbit

http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/darius-the-worlds-largest-bunny-rabbit/2ggjdrcl

'Sir King Darius' has been confirmed as the world's largest rabbit. At four foot three he has taken the title from his mother Alice.