The insect apocalypse is not here but there are reasons for concern

"WE WERE SHOCKED," says Brad Lister, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. "We couldn't believe the first results. I remember [in the 1970s] butterflies everywhere after rain. On the first day back [in 2012], I saw hardly any." Dr Lister is describing the Luquillo forest of Puerto Rico, where he recently carried out a census of insect life and found it had been almost wiped out in 40 years. But he could be talking about many other places. Over the past few years, scores of scien...