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

A newborn rhino calf stands under his mother. He is black and does not have his signature horns in yet.
Animals

A critically endangered Sumatran rhino named Delilah welcomes first calf

By Laura Baisas

Charli my toy Aussie Shepherd in her Fable crate next to the couch
Animals

My dog’s safe space can be your dog’s new happy place

By Tony Ware

shipping containers on ship sailing through the sea
Energy

Green shipping picks up speed

By Elise Hansen / Knowable Magazine

Six African penguins standing on a rock. They have white plumage with black dots arranged in individual patterns on their chests.
Animals

African penguins may tell each other apart by the spots in their plumage

By Laura Baisas

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology
Animals

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology

By Sara Van Note / Undark

colorful eel and the physics behind its skin color
Animals

How animals get their skin patterns is a matter of physics

By Ankur Gupta / The Conversation

A cat DNA test on a plain background
Animals

Shop pet DNA kits at Amazon for Black Friday and find your dog or cat’s origin story

By Amanda Reed

An artist's rendering of a trilobite based on preserved soft body parts. The animal has two antennae protruding from its head and is oval-shaped.
Animals

10 new species of trilobite fossil rise from volcanic ash

By Laura Baisas

Cranberries at a Thanksgiving table
Agriculture

Cranberries can bounce, float, and pollinate themselves

By Serina DeSalvio / The Conversation

A blue Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder filled with seed is mounted to a green post.
Animals

The best bird feeder camera is cheaper than ever at Amazon for Black Friday

By Stan Horaczek

Army ants building living bridge between two ledges in lab
Animals

Army ants could teach robots a thing or two

By Andrew Paul

An Indian cobra found in the farmlands of Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India. Around 58,000 Indians die from snakebites every year, the highest rate in the world.
Animals

In India, a need for new antidotes to curb deadly snakebites

By Kamala Thiagarajan / Undark

A mature Megasyllis nipponica with a developing female stolon.
Animals

Why these sea worms detach their butts to reproduce

By Laura Baisas

An aquatic nematode living in pond water among cyanobacteria. The small worms are sometimes trapped and eaten by carnivorous fungi.
Biology

These tiny worms are no match for carnivorous fungi

By Laura Baisas

Colorful eyes of different animals; illustration
Animals

How do animals see the world?

By Laura Baisas

Broadclub Cuttlefish
Animals

Cuttlefish and their amazing technicolor dreamcoats

By Olivia Ferrari / Hakai Magazine

Black and white photo of merchant ship encountering rogue wave
AI

An equation co-written with AI reveals monster rogue waves form ‘all the time’

By Andrew Paul

A serotine bat with its mouth open, showing teeth. Serotine bats are widely spread throughout Europe and Asia and have a 15 inch wingspan.
Animals

Scientists are confounded by the sex lives of serontine bats

By Laura Baisas

Dolphins that learn to approach people for an easy meal will often hang around fishing boats.
Conservation

Stop feeding the dolphins—seriously

By Emily Harwitz / Hakai Magazine

A woman in a puffy coat points in a direction. Her small dog looks excitedly in that direction. They are sitting in a park with oranges leaves on green grass.
Animals

Why dogs usually can’t tell what you’re pointing at

By Laura Baisas

An extreme close up of a mosquito biting human skin.
Animals

How ingredients in everyday soap could help fight malaria

By Laura Baisas

Four choices for the best air purifiers for allergies on a plain background
Climate Change

The best air purifiers for allergies in 2024

By Amanda Reed

Two wild bonobos sit in a tree. Researchers examined pro-social behaviors of the smaller species of great ape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Animals

Wild bonobos show surprising signs of cooperation between groups

By Laura Baisas

Birds flying past wind turbines at sunrise
Energy

How wind turbines could coexist peacefully with bats and birds

By Katarina Zimmer / Knowable Magazine

A bioluminescent sea cucumber called Scotoplanes or the “sea pig.”
Animals

Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow

By Laura Baisas

A piping plover walks along L Street Beach in South Boston. The bird is small, with white and grey plummage.
Animals

Piping plovers are in trouble, but there’s some good news

By Laura Baisas

Storm coming in over farm field
AI

Google DeepMind’s AI forecasting is outperforming the ‘gold standard’ model

By Andrew Paul

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, photographed by a camera trap.
Animals

Elusive egg-laying mammal caught on camera for the first time

By Laura Baisas

A lateral view of Loncovilius carlsbergi. It is a six-limbed beetle less than an inch long, with two antennae protruding from its head.
Animals

These newfound beetles have male genitals shaped like a bottle opener

By Laura Baisas

It’s time to start counting spiders
Animals

It’s time to start counting spiders

By Betsy Mason / Knowable Magazine

An Anna’s hummingbird with bright pink plumage flies near some leafy green trees.
Animals

Hummingbirds have two creative strategies for flying through tight spaces

By Laura Baisas

Smallmouth buffalofish caught at Apache Lake, Arizone
Animals

Century-old buffalofish are still living in their prime

By Hannah Seo

Gas stoves are dangerous
Energy

How gas stove companies used Big Tobacco’s PR playbook

By Jonathan Levy / The Conversation

A selection of sustainable gifts, featuring a stack of Coyuchi towels, steel watering cans, and Jackery solar generators
Environment

Sustainable gift guide: 20+ gifts that keep on giving

By Jen McCaffery, Quinn Gawronski, Stan Horaczek

Four rows of repeated gifts for new plant parents: a pink cactus humidifer, bonsai scissors, a green ZZ plants in a white pot, and green and white plant lover socks.
Environment

20+ gifts to help your new plant parent friends grow their love of plants

By Helen Bradshaw

Illustration in green, yellow, orange, and purple of big sauropod dinosaurs lifting weights in front of a prehistoric landscape
Animals

The mystery of why some dinosaurs got so enormous

By Riley Black

A side view of a great white shark. Regional endothermy in fish has been seen in apex predators like the great white sharks or giant tuna.
Animals

Megalodon’s warm-blooded relatives are still circling the oceans today

By Laura Baisas

A louse on human hair under a microscope. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest human louse known to scientists is a 10,000 year-old specimen from Brazil.
Animals

What head lice can tell us about human migration

By Laura Baisas

Image of kilobots atop photo of bees
Animals

These robots reached a team consensus like a swarm of bees

By Andrew Paul

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs
Conservation

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs

By Brent M. Foster / Hakai Magazine

A lineup of the best cat trees split vertically into fourths
Animals

The best cat trees of 2024

By Amanda Reed

A lineup of the best cat scratching posts cut vertically into fourths.
Animals

The best cat scratching posts in 2024

By Amanda Reed, Jordan Landsman

Dog DNA test header
Animals

The best dog DNA tests of 2024

By Alexandra Berry

Kelp holds a timeline of Earth’s history
Climate Change

Kelp holds a timeline of Earth’s history

By Bill Morris / Hakai Magazine

Detail shots of compost bins made by Vitamix, Redmon, Vivosun, and Vermihut.
DIY

The best compost bins of 2024

By Carla Sosenko

Hot dogs at the grocery store without meat warning labels
Agriculture

Graphic warning labels might convince people to eat less meat

By Hannah Seo

The best dog beds of 2024
Animals

The best dog beds of 2024

By Stacey L. Nash

A baby loggerhead turtle pokes out of a shell on the sand. Its head and front flippers are out of the shell, with the lower half remaining inside.
Animals

Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Ekgmowechashala, the last primate to inhabit North America before humans. The animal has a white furry face, with a pink nose, and large dark eyes like a lemur. It is sitting in a leafy tree.
Animals

North America was once home to some unusual wild monkeys

By Laura Baisas

elephant seal wearing tag like a hat
Animals

Seals with funny hats are helping map the Antarctic seascape

By Charlotte Hu

Why do we eat so many cows
Agriculture

Why cutting back on cow consumption is so hard

By Naoki Nitta / Grist

A black and white cat with a large mid-section sits on a kitchen floor.
Animals

Overfeeding cats will mess with their guts and poop

By Laura Baisas

A white rat pops its head out of a black box. Like in humans, the rat’s hippocampus is the part of the brain where mental maps of the world are stored.
Animals

Rats may have imaginations

By Laura Baisas

A honey-infused Bee's Knees cocktail on a white plate on a table next to a jar of honey, some lemons, and a honey dipper.
Animals

The science behind mixing honey into cocktails

By Noah Lederman

An orange starfish, or sea star, on a black backgorund. The unusual five-axis symmetry of sea stars has long confounded our understanding of animal evolution.
Animals

The sea star’s whole body is a head

By Laura Baisas

Offshore wind turbine being constructed with nearby supply ship
Energy

A Danish company just scrapped its ambitious plan for a New Jersey offshore wind farm

By Andrew Paul

Lawn equipment spews ‘shocking’ amount of air pollution, new data shows
Climate Change

Lawn equipment spews ‘shocking’ amount of air pollution, new data shows

By Tik Root/Grist

Several blooming yellow sunflowers under a blue sky with white clouds.
Agriculture

We still don’t fully know how sunflowers turn toward the sun

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of an early lamprey's teeth and sucker. The Jurassic lampreys Yanliaomyzon had a feeding apparatus that surprisingly resembles that of the pouched lampreys. It foreshadows the ancestral flesh-eating habit of present day. lampreys.
Animals

Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh

By Laura Baisas

Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine
Aviation

Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine

By Andrew Paul

Cape Fear River in North Carolina, which is polluted by PFAS, seen from above after a storm
Cancer

8 new types of ‘forever chemicals’ found in river linked to US cancer cluster

By Hannah Seo

An artist’s illustration of two Jormungandr walhallaensis mosasaurs fighting. The extinct creatrue is a long sea serpent with flippers, a shark-like tail, and narrow jaws. One is seen biting the other in the next, while pterosaurs fly above it.
Animals

Newfound mosasaur was like a giant Komodo dragon with flippers

By Laura Baisas

happy dog pet water fountain
Animals

The best pet water fountains of 2024

By Stacey L. Nash

New refuge provides hope for critically endangered toad
Animals

New refuge provides hope for critically endangered toad

By Christine Peterson/High Country News

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