Becca Brunner was standing chest-deep in an Ecuadoran rainforest stream, holding up audio equipment as she recorded the high-pitched call of an elusive glass frog. But then she encountered something…
DIANA REGION, Madagascar — With the sun still low in the sky, my taxi boat pulled up to a floating wooden pontoon in the bustling port of Ankify in northwestern…
Earth’s future looks decidedly bleak, according to a group of 17 prominent international scientists. But understanding the magnitude of the world’s problems is not an easy feat, even for knowledgeable…
Plastic is everywhere — literally everywhere. A growing body of research shows that plastic is not only filling the world’s oceans and wilderness regions, it’s also invading our bodies through…
In a newly released map, the coastal waters of the eight main Hawaiian islands are alight with color. Blue, turquoise, green, yellow, orange and red tinge the islands’ perimeters, each…
1. The ocean in a worldwide pandemic As the year that challenged the world with a widespread pandemic draws to a close, COVID-19 has affected almost every aspect of life…
A Brazilian study turns dogs into advanced students in training to identify people infected with the coronavirus
How does a business grow and expand, but function in a way that doesn’t overexploit the Earth? A new enterprise is offering an answer to this question. Last week, the…
There’s a new kid in town: a gray-furred langur with white-rimmed eyes and a fluffy head has just been announced as a new primate species. The Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa),…
Armed with headlamps and flashlights, a team of researchers in northwestern Madagascar searched through the night for an elusive chameleon, Voeltzkow’s chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi), which hadn’t been spotted for more…
Researchers have just made a remarkable discovery in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. While mapping the seafloor off the coast of far north Queensland state, scientists onboard…
Two liters of seawater, or about half a gallon. That’s all that’s needed to detect the presence of sharks in the ocean, according to a new study. A group of…
The Somali sengi is a strange amalgamation of creatures. While its body is the shape and size of a mouse’s, it has spindly, gazelle-like legs that allow it to dart…
The new Science Panel for the Amazon — modeled on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — aims to consolidate knowledge on the Amazon rainforest and guide future public policies to conserve it.
Narwhals are Arctic-dwelling whales with a unique feature: the males have spirally, sword-like tusks that can extend up to 3 meters (10 feet). But these magical-looking creatures are facing a…
Beyond the sun’s reach is a nutrient-rich, species-abundant part of the ocean called the midwater ecosystem. This zone, which extends from a depth of 200-5,000 meters (660-16,400 feet) to 5…
In 1997, Charles Moore was sailing a catamaran from Hawaii to California when he and his crew got stuck in windless waters in the North Pacific Ocean. As they motored…
Just days after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro got the bad news that the Amazon 12-month deforestation rate has risen 96% since he took office, his administration fired the researcher overseeing monitoring.
Filipino lepidopterist Jade Aster T. Badon is accustomed to traveling to some of the remotest parts of the Philippines in search of new butterfly species. In August 2019, he made…
When sea temperatures rise, coral reefs get “stressed out.” They expel a microscopic algae called zooxanthellae from their tissues, and this process causes colorful coral polyps to “bleach” a stark…
Madagascar is often called the “red island” because of its iron-rich soils. In school, Malagasy children are taught that their island was green until human beings destroyed most of the…
April and May saw record intense Arctic heat. Now some scientists are asking whether an absence of industrial sulfate aerosol pollutants, which reflect solar energy, could be the cause.
A mysterious disease is wiping out one of the world’s smallest bats, the aptly named “little brown bat,” which has an extensive range across the United States and Canada. But…
A microplastic is a tiny speck of a thing. At its largest, it’s about the size of a linseed, but smaller microplastics can’t be seen with the naked eye. Minuscule…
In 2018, Lauren Biermann was scouring a satellite image of the ocean off the coast of the Isle of May, Scotland, searching for signs of floating seaweed for a project…
Let’s be honest: many conservationists may start their careers with big ambitions. But as they, and their careers, age, those ambitions — especially in light of the Anthropocene — understandably…
Multiple studies show that Arctic warming is altering temperate and equatorial weather. Now, new research finds that Antarctic ice melt could be a major tropical change agent too.
Surrounded by darkness, many deep-sea creatures emit light to help find prey or avoid predators. Scientists have long known that small organs called photophores are responsible for this bioluminescence. Now…
Last year, Jessie Panazzolo, like many young conservationists (and some middle-aged ones too), didn’t so much feel her career had stalled as that it had been cut out by the…
For three years, the Bandeiras e Rodovias project looked at how giant anteaters interacted with the highways in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. One of the conclusions: road deaths have cut the species' growth rate in half.
