Environment

Baby penguins getting their nails did is inherently adorable, but at Blackpool Zoo in England, where these pedicures are taking place, they also serve a purpose: preventing keepers from mixing the chicks up. One chick from each pair in a nest box has had its toenails painted with blue nail polish, so the baby birds’ health checks, weights, and developmental progress can be accurately recorded. Known for their fast swimming and strong flippers, Magellanic penguins are native to Argentina and Chile. The 10 males and 13 females at the Lancashire zoo are the only ones of their kind in the U.K., and they’re now enjoying their newly expanded Penguin Cove habitat.

A married couple who created Scotland’s first “champagne” from grapes grown on an old potato field finally took a sip of the bubbly beverage to toast their granddaughter’s first birthday — and they said it has a “light and fruity taste.”

The winners of the 2025 National Geographic Traveller Photography Competition have been revealed — and the subjects range from a vibrant rainbow staircase in France to a geothermal pool that looks like a dragon’s eye and more. Every year, National Geographic Traveller (UK) organizes the contest, which is open to amateur and professional photographers from the United Kingdom and Ireland, to highlight the best in travel photography. Now in its 13th year, the contest features six categories: People, City Life, Landscape, Wildlife, Food, and Portfolio. Out of thousands of submissions, 18 photographers were selected as finalists before the winning shots were chosen. “Our competition goes from strength to strength, with this year’s easily one of the strongest yet,” said Pat Riddell, editor of the travel magazine.

Our planet is home to around 1 million known insect species, and about 1%-3% of them are considered pests, per the National Pesticide Information Center. But which one has been bugging humans the longest? A team of scientists led by two Virginia Tech researchers think they’ve figured it out: In a study published Wednesday, they suggest that bed bugs were the first human pest. The bugs began their pesky relationship with people when they hopped off a bat and attached themselves to a Neanderthal around 60,000 years ago, the authors say — and they’ve stuck around their human hosts ever since. But according to the researchers, the populations of bed bugs that stayed with bats have been declining since the Ice Age, also known as the Last Glacial Maximum, around 20,000 years ago.