Environment

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

Latest in Environment

VERO four legged robot vacuuming cigarette butts
Climate Change

This plodding robot sucks up cigarette butts

By Andrew Paul

five chimpanzeess sitting in tall, green grass
Animals

Chimp conversations can take on human-like chaos

By Laura Baisas

Polymetallic nodules scattered across bottom of the ocean floor
Biology

‘Dark oxygen’ on ocean floor may rewrite Earth’s origins of life

By Andrew Paul

a brown dog looks up with a longing expression
Animals

Your dog can probably smell your stress

By Laura Baisas

view from airplane
Climate Change

Climate change is making turbulence worse

By Lauren Leffer

Thick clouds of fine particulate matter blow off China in this 2016 satellite photo (oriented with north to the left).
Climate Change

How the Blob was born

By Michael Allen / Hakai Magazine

An old female rhesus macaque eats alone on the island of Cayo Santiago. As female macaques age, the size of their social network shrinks.
Animals

It’s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age

By Tim Vernimmen / Knowable Magazine

a crocodile, kangaroos, and shark
Animals

15 photographs documenting the silly, serene, and savage side of the animal kingdom

By Popular Science Team

a bear lays flat on its belly on a rocky beach with its legs projected backwards
Animals

It’s sploot season: Animals strike a pose to chill out

By Popular Science Team

This rotifer has just survived a life-threatening infection. When a fungal disease attacked, she switched on hundreds of genes that her ancestors copied from microbes, including antibiotic recipes stolen from bacteria.
Animals

No sex? No problem. These tiny, asexual animals steal genes to make their own medicine 

By Lauren Leffer

Solar farm panels in meadow
Conservation

There’s a right and a wrong way to build a solar farm

By Andrew Paul

a bee kicks away an ant
Animals

Ant gets bee-slapped, and other strange bug moments

By Laura Baisas

a baby crocodile hatches from an egg, surrounded by other eggs.
Animals

106 critically endangered Siamese crocodile eggs spotted in Cambodia

By Laura Baisas

dog skull
Animals

What does a pug skull look like? University digitizes skulls of 152 dog breeds.

By Popular Science Team

a 3D rendering of three early humans butchering a giant armadillo
Animals

Early humans butchered enormous armadillos

By Laura Baisas

Nubian spitting cobra (
Animals

Breakthrough cobra venom antidote discovered

By Andrew Paul

a long, dark brown millipede crawling on brown and green leaves
Animals

Expedition finds a 10-inch long millipede lost to science for 126 years

By Laura Baisas

The English women's athletics team, the appearance of the first UK female athletes at international Olympics, Sweden, Stockholm 1912.
Animals

The Olympics has been obsessed with sex for centuries

By Popular Science Team

Cat Falling
Animals

How animals use physics

By Tom Siegfried / Knowable Magazine

Dragonfly resting on flower
Animals

Dragonflies reveal how toxic mercury moves in nature

By Andrew Paul

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