In 2009, a controversial scientific experiment dumped 6 metric tons of dissolved iron into the Southern Ocean to see if it would trigger a massive bloom of phytoplankton in iron-deficient…
Algae biofuels were initially hailed as a holy grail to sustainably power the transportation sector. Now after more than a decade of boom and bust, the industry says it’s on the verge of globally scalable, climate-friendly jet, ship and truck fuels.
Coastal ecosystems are very good at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. But, as new research in the Baltic Sea shows, we also need to look at what they’re putting…
Biofuels have long been held up as a viable high-tech climate solution, but in practice they’ve often not lived up to their promise, causing environmental harm and in some cases being more carbon-intensive than fossil fuels.
How do you keep an eye on the expansive ocean? You could hop on a boat and get really close to the water. You could do it from tens of…
JAKARTA — Years of deforestation and mining have devastated a wetland of international importance in Papua New Guinea, which, if left unchecked, could lead to the collapse of the ecosystem,…
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
A long-running territorial standoff over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea has seen vessels dumping enough raw sewage to threaten the marine ecosystem there — and the degradation…
Though Shell, Chevron and others have abandoned the quest for the Holy Grail — a revolutionary algae biofuel that could be scaled up to replace oil — ExxonMobil continues the search; but is it all just greenwash?
It started in October 2017. A swarm of microscopic algae called Karenia brevis amassed in the waters off Florida’s southwest coast, turning the ocean a rust-red hue. The algae, which…
The kelp forests of the oceans are a habitat for a wide range of marine species, rivaling even the great tropical forests for sheer richness of biodiversity, according to scientists…
On Feb. 26, 2003, a group of scientists set out to sea from Goa, India, on a routine mission. They called it "sea truthing," verifying data gathered by satellites eyeing…
The Con X Tech Prize just announced its second round will be funding 20 finalists each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes. Some 150 teams submitted ideas that use…
Some corals stand a chance of surviving the current rise in global sea temperatures, a team of scientists recently reported, thanks to the diversity of their algal counterparts. They found…
Picture the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to have lived. This endangered mammal can grow up to 30 metres (about 98 feet) and weigh 173 tonnes; it has…
