The Williams’ residence in suburban Melbourne is home to three dogs and five humans. Life is often chaotic as each member of the household negotiates for space and attention.
Tiny, biointensive operations show smallholder farmers from around the world how they can grow far more food than conventional approaches.
Given the choice, many dogs prefer praise from their owners rather than food, according to one of the first studies to combine brain-imaging data with behavioral experiments to explore canine reward preferences.
On a recent Monday evening in Seattle’s Central District, a handful of people gathered to work on a community farm. They pulled weeds, talked about the best ways to string up tomatoes, checked the progress of the greens and beans, harvested radishes and planted wildflowers.
As I became more adept at motivating my horse, focusing her attention, and gaining her respect, relationships at home and work improved. People commented on the change, yet no one could pinpoint what had shifted. The plot thickened as I gained more knowledge about instinctual horse behavior.
Love them or hate them, ring-necked parakeets have invaded Europe and they’re here to stay. Already a staple of many urban parks and gardens around the UK, some of these charismatic bright green birds are now so comfortable in their new surroundings that they will happily sit and feed from your hand.
Bees provide us with an invaluable service by pollinating plants, an indispensable part of natural and agricultural ecosystems. This is why declining bee populations are such a big concern.
Plant biologists have discovered how sunflowers use their internal circadian clock, acting on growth hormones, to follow the sun during the day as they grow.
Cannabis continues to be the world’s favourite illicit drug with around 147m people using it annually. However, there are fears that the drug is becoming increasingly potent and that it could pose a public health risk. But how reliable is the evidence? And is it really getting stronger?
The ideas below are from the Great Neighborhood Book, a collaboration between OTC Senior Fellow Jay Walljasper and Project for Public Spaces. Walljasper is a Minneapolis-based speaker and consultant about how to strengthen communities.
The one fact about plants that most people probably remember from school is that they use sunlight to make their own food. That process, photosynthesis, means that plants are dependent on sunlight.
Since the evolution of dogs from wolves tens of thousands of years ago, they have been selectively bred for various roles as guards, hunters, workers and companions.
Mowgli arrived at Best Friends Animal Society in Utah after being rejected by two shelters. On my day for volunteering, I saw the eight-month-old malamute sitting off by himself, and I walked over to the fence to talk to him. When those mahogany eyes looked deep into my heart and touched my soul, I fell in love.
Life in the city can be stressful – for birds just as much as people. For humans, cities are expressly designed to put roofs over heads and food within easy reach, but the opposite can be true for many urban birds. They can find food and shelter harder to come by in the concrete jungle – with some notable exceptions.
The idea that we can't feed ourselves with sustainable means is scoffed at by many. Without oil, pesticides, and GMOs we will certainly starve we are told by an establishment that sometimes seems without conscience.
Imagine you’re a cat, and, every time you meowed, the loud voice of a snooty-sounding British gentleman kindly informed your human guardian of your every thought and feeling (well, the thoughts and feelings you had before you were terrified by the sound of the voice).
We live in a world where time is all important. Nanoseconds mark the difference between success or failure to make an electronic transaction and where we are continuously reminded of “the time”: of being early or late, of having missed an appointment or arriving “before time”. In today’s world, time now governs our life.
It’s hard to avoid stress, and the expectation that we are camels with unbreakable backs. I know this from personal experience as part of the “squeezed generation” with young children, an old parent and a demanding job.
These herbs aren't just for cooking—here's how you can use them to treat ailments from asthma to anxiety.
Urban flooding represents the most common yet severe environmental threat to cities and towns worldwide. Future changes in rainfall extremes are likely to increase this threat, even in areas that could become drier.
If we as humans can feel more beauty in ourselves, in our homes, in our environment, how much that can change our very experience of life itself. If we see and experience more beauty in the world then we can't help but being touched and moved by it.
A sustainable film made from a byproduct of kombucha tea could be a new material for clothing, shoes, or handbags.
About six months after Morris first appeared at Lauren’s door, he started to appear at my door instead. All my life I’d had a cat phobia. Cats terrified me so much that I had recurrent nightmares about a cat jumping from a tall staircase and landing on the back of my neck.