Environment
- Earth
Smoke from Australian fires rose higher into the ozone layer than ever before
The catastrophic wildfires in Australia around New Year’s generated a massive smoke plume that still hasn’t dissipated in the stratosphere.
- Environment
How giving cash to poor families may also save trees in Indonesia
Indonesia’s poverty reduction program also reduced deforestation by 30 percent, researchers say.
- Earth
Up to 220 million people globally may be at risk of arsenic-contaminated water
A new world map highlights possible hot spots of arsenic contamination in groundwater.
- Climate
How to protect your home from disasters amplified by climate change
How people can make their homes and communities more resilient to the effects of climate change, including floods, fires, heat and drought.
- Oceans
Deep-sea mining may damage underwater ecosystems for decades
Microbe communities in the seabed off Peru still haven’t fully recovered from being disturbed by a deep-sea mining experiment 26 years ago.
- Environment
50 years ago, American waterways were getting more protections
A 1970 bill that became the Clean Water Act helped to double the number of U.S. waterbodies clean enough for swimming and fishing. In January, the U.S. administration changed how waters were defined, effectively removing those protections for half the country’s wetlands.
- Environment
A year long expedition spotlights night life in the Arctic winter
Scientists anchored to an ice floe near the North Pole are investigating how life survives polar night and what changes will occur as the Arctic continues to warm.
- Climate
These women endured a winter in the high Arctic for citizen science
Two women have spent the winter on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to collect data for climate scientists around the world.
- Environment
Legos may take hundreds of years to break down in the ocean
Sturdy types of plastic may persist in seawater for much long than scientists previously thought.
- Climate
How Hurricane Maria’s heavy rains devastated Puerto Rico’s forests
Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rican forests in some unexpected ways.
- Climate
Fossil fuel use may emit 40 percent more methane than we thought
Ice cores suggest natural seeps release less methane than was estimated, meaning industry produces nearly all of today’s geologic methane emissions.
- Science & Society
Turning human bodies into compost works, a small trial suggests
Experiments test the effectiveness and safety of human composting, which may soon be an alternative to burial or cremation in Washington state.
