Environment(Page 18)

The changes and wonders of the natural world—and how human interaction influences animals, the ocean, and the rest of the environment.

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Latest in Environment

BT Group's green broadband cabinet box
Technology

Outdated broadband equipment could find new life as EV chargers

By Andrew Paul

Three alkaline hydrolysis machines for pet remains at the Bio-Response manufacturing facility
Environment

Inside the warehouse that builds machines to liquify dead bodies

By Helen Bradshaw

Side view of woman's hand feeding horseback on sunny day
Health

Why studying horses could help humans stay healthy, too

By Jane Manfredi/The Conversation

A streak of blue lightning, representing energy, spreads horizontally across a textured cement surface.
Technology

Two ancient materials may help solve a modern energy dilemma

By Andrew Paul

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility sign on cloudy day in New Mexico
Technology

Cold War-era atomic weapons facilities in the US could become clean energy powerhouses

By Andrew Paul

A bee on a peach rose. Understanding how flowering plants and bees evolved together can help inform conservation efforts for pollinators and how to keep their populations healthy.
Environment

The world’s earliest bees may have called Gondwana home

By Laura Baisas

Smoke rises as teams try to extinguish wildfires on Rhodes island, Greece on July 25, 2023. Some 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island of Rhodes as wildfires continued burning for a sixth day, authorities said on Sunday. As many as 266 firefighters and 49 fire engines were on the ground battling the blazes, assisted by five helicopters and 10 airplanes.
Environment

July 2023 was likely the hottest month in 120,000 years

By Laura Baisas

wolf pack on rock formation
Environment

Howls, butt sniffs, and pee sprays: understanding animal languages

By Eva Meijer/MIT Press Reader

Swimmers walk out of the water after an evening swim on a beach in Avarua on Rarotonga, the largest Island in the Cook Islands.
Environment

The Cook Islands appear to embrace deep-sea mining—but at what risk?

By Rachel Reeves/Hakai Magazine

A piece of toast with homemade vegan butter on it
DIY

How to make simple and delicious vegan butter

By Rachel Feltman

A scanning electron picture of a female Panagrolaimus kolymaensis nematode.
Environment

Recently awoken 46,000-year-old nematodes already have 100 generations of babies

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of Solnhofia parsonsi’s environment in an Upper Jurassic lagoon 150 million years ago in what is now Lower Bavaria. The turtle swims in a shallow body of water, with fish swimming near it and pterosaurs flying above.
Environment

150 million-year-old turtle ‘pancake’ found in Germany

By Laura Baisas

LAPD K-9 handler wears a protective bite suit during a demonstration with a police dog
Environment

Police say dogs help solve crimes. Little evidence supports that.

By Peter Andrey Smith/Undark

electric vehicle at charger
Technology

7 automakers team up to cover the US and Canada with fast EV chargers

By Sara Kiley Watson

A pink river dolphin, or boto, displaying aerial behavior in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve.
Environment

Eavesdropping on pink river dolphins could help save them

By Laura Baisas

Wind turbine with red base in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel
Environment

An Israeli wind project draws scrutiny on turbines and people’s health

By Zayna Syed

Dead elkhorn coral at Sombrero Reef in the Florida Keys. The white areas are bleached coral, the brownish orange patches are "tissue slough", coral tissue that has died before it has a chance to bleach.
Environment

Mass coral reef bleaching in Florida as ocean temperatures hit 100 degrees

By Laura Baisas

A flower of a Nasa humboldtiana subspecies called humboldtiana that was rediscovered by a team of botanists and citizen scientists for the first time in 162 years. The flower has four white petals, leading down to a center of pink petals.
Environment

These unusual plants had disappeared—until citizen scientists helped hunt them down

By Laura Baisas

A billboard displays a temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit during a record heat wave in Phoenix, Arizona on July 18, 2023. Swaths of the United States home to more than 80 million people were under heat warnings or advisories, as relentless, record-breaking temperatures continued to bake western and southern states.
Environment

July’s extreme heat waves ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change

By Laura Baisas

Red7Marine kittiwake offshore wind farm habitat
Technology

Artificial nests could give endangered birds a home near new offshore wind farm

By Andrew Paul

A baby lionhead rabbit sits in the grass. These domesticated rabbits are named after the lion-like mane around their faces.
Environment

Florida suburb is overrun by fluffy rabbits after breeder goes rogue

By Laura Baisas

Get up close to eagles, owls, hawks, and more with the best bird watching binoculars.
Gear

The best bird-watching binoculars in 2024

By Charlotte Nash

A kākāpō chick. The birds are are large flightless parrots from New Zealand who are masters of camouflage and known for a booming call.
Environment

A flightless parrot is returning to mainland New Zealand after a 40-year absence

By Laura Baisas

Streets of New York City.
Environment

How ‘underground climate change’ affects life on the Earth’s surface

By Carla Delgado

A group of colorful spices on a wooden table with a mortar and pestle.
Science

Leftovers of a 2,000-year-old curry discovered on stone cooking tools

By Laura Baisas

Amazon package at fulfillment center.
Environment

Amazon might finally be cutting down on plastic waste

By Joseph Winters / Grist

deep sea bubbles
Environment

The key to bringing deep sea samples up to the coast? An underwater freezer.

By Annie Roth / Hakai Magazine

American actor Richard Dreyfuss (left) (as marine biologist Hooper) and British author and actor Robert Shaw (as shark fisherman Quint) look off the stern of Quint's fishing boat the 'Orca' at the terrifying approach of the mechanical giant shark dubbed 'Bruce' in a scene from the film 'Jaws' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975.
Environment

Why the creators of ‘Jaws’ regretted making sharks the monsters

By Laura Baisas

first road constructed with plastic waste in Agartala
Environment

Turning plastic waste into streets faces roadblocks

By James Bruggers/Inside Climate News

parasitic horsehair worm
Science

‘Brainwashing’ parasites inherit a strange genetic gap

By Maddi Langweil

Wind turbines on green hills
Environment

US climate efforts look promising, but there’s more to do

By Sara Kiley Watson

The sun sets over a large ice berg in Greenland, with a large chunk of fallen ice floating in the ocean. Greenland’s continental glacier covers about 80 percent of the 836,3000-square-mile land mass.
Environment

Greenland’s ice sheets aren’t as old—or as resilient—as scientists expected

By Laura Baisas

turmeric at spice market
Health

For decades, turmeric’s ultra-golden glow had a deadly secret

By Wudan Yan/Undark

Arco del Tiempo (Arch of Time) mockup
Technology

This art installation will tell time and produce solar energy

By Sara Kiley Watson

A saber tooth cat fossil is displayed during a press preview of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on June 4, 2019.
Environment

Paleontologists discover two new sabertooth cat species

By Laura Baisas

Study author shows off the compressed mycelium sheets she created for the project
Technology

This fungi-based substance might protect homes from ever-worsening wildfires

By Sara Kiley Watson

Cod fish heads
Environment

No guts left behind: Iceland’s quest to repurpose fish waste

By Lela Nargi/Hakai Magazine

the view from on a container ship
Technology

The first container ship fueled by food scraps is ready to set sail

By Charlotte Hu

person holding latest fairphone
Environment

The most sustainable phone on the market is the one in your pocket

By Carla Delgado

Fervo Energy Project Red geothermal mining site in Nevada
Technology

An American start-up claims it just set a geothermal energy record

By Andrew Paul

Aerial view of Shishaldin Volcano with Isanotski Peaks in the background, taken from a helicopter overflight during geology field work on Unimak Island in the Aleutians. August 15, 2018.
Science

Alaska’s Shishaldin Volcano spews 5.5-mile-high ash cloud

By Laura Baisas

Person holds "SOS!! Pacific Ocean!" sign at Fukushima water release protest.
Technology

Japan’s plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant is actually pretty safe

By Andrew Paul

Illustration showing Repenomamus robustus as it attacks Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis moments before a volcanic debris flow buries them both about 125 million years ago.
Environment

This badger-like mammal may have died while trying to eat a dinosaur

By Laura Baisas

Pair of bluefin tuna strung up on a fishing crane on the coast of Spain
Environment

Who caught the first bluefin tuna?

By Karen Pinchin

Limousine and private jet on landing strip.
Technology

A cap on ‘luxury’ emissions could make a clean energy transition fairer

By Andrew Paul

A green sea turtle swims in the ocean.
Environment

Hungry green sea turtles have eaten in the same seagrass meadows for about 3,000 years

By Laura Baisas

Concept art of lunar solar power station in orbit
Technology

This giant solar power station could beam energy to lunar bases

By Andrew Paul

A protester stands next to a digital display of an unofficial heat reading at Furnace Creek Visitor Center during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, California, on July 16, 2023. The signs read “this is the climate emergency,” and “happy death day.”
Environment

Extreme heat warning extends to more than 100 million people in the US

By Laura Baisas

Bull elk in the wilderness
Environment

Like whales and bats, elk have regional dialects

By Kylie Mohr / High Country News

EPA plan to eliminate lead in buildings could help half a million young children
Health

EPA plan to eliminate lead in buildings could help half a million young children

By Kate Yoder/Grist

Two people sitting in mycocrete dome structure
Technology

Fungi spores and knitting combine to make a durable and sustainable building material

By Andrew Paul

An artist’s illustration of Alligator munensis, which is skimming the water with its eye out and surrounded by lush green trees. The large tooth sockets towards the back of its mouth suggest this extinct gator could crush shells and may have snacked on hard-shelled prey like snails.
Environment

Extinct snub-nosed gator had big teeth for crushing snails

By Laura Baisas

Ocean waves crashing.
Environment

How climate change is pushing oxygen out of the world’s oceans

By Carla Delgado

Red pieces of CRISPR-edited wood against the paler natural type.
Science

Genetically modified trees could mean more sustainable wood

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A dire wolf reconstruction on exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum.
Environment

Mighty saber-toothed cats and dire wolves probably had achy joints

By Laura Baisas

Group of Chinook salmon.
Environment

Beer’s pungent scent could help salmon find their way home

By Ben Goldfarb/Hakai Magazine

Three cows taking shelter near a house during a flash flood. A black one and a brown one are standing knee-deep in water, while a second brown one is standing on the porch.
Environment

Flash floods are rare, but deadly. Here’s how to be ready for them.

By Maria Parazo Rose

An image of the northern Gulf of Mexico created from remote-sensing reflectance and chlorophyll measurements taken from newly reprocessed VIIRS data. Green water is seen closer to the coast, while it gets darker and more blue further out.
Environment

Scientists say the ocean is changing color—and it’s probably our fault

By Laura Baisas

A banded sea snake swimming freely
Environment

Some sea snakes may not be colorblind after all

By Laura Baisas

Heavy rain sends mud and debris down the Ottauquechee River in Quechee, Vermont on July 10, 2023.
Environment

Dangerous inland flooding will last for days in some Northeast states

By Laura Baisas

A large group of shells on a beach. Organisms with hard, durable parts, like shells, are more likely to be preserved as fossils than organisms composed entirely of soft tissue.
Environment

The fossil record holds clues about modern-day marine ecology

By Laura Baisas

Oldest tunicate on record from the Cambrian explosion, illustrated on the ocean floor
Environment

A 500-million-year-old sea squirt is the evolutionary clue we need to understand our humble beginnings

By Maddi Langweil

Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Carlsbad, CA
Environment

How energy from waves might simplify desalination

By Becki Robins/Hakai Magazine

single fruit fly
Technology

What’s life like for a fruit fly? AI offers a peek.

By Maddi Langweil