Dutch biologist Erik Meijaard isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers. In the past 15 years, he’s published some 120 opinion pieces in Indonesian newspapers, many of them critical about the state…
In 2006 and 2010, Congolese researcher Raoul Monsembula collected catfish and other species from the rivers in Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Then he hopped…
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic consumed humanity’s attention, our species ran through 4.5 trillion doses of myriad pharmaceuticals. In India alone, one drug, paracetamol — a pain reliever used to treat…
Unstudied at sea until recently, this huge, fast-moving ocean current may hold a key to resolving climate change uncertainties. But doing remote research in southern oceans poses financial, data gathering, and unexpected challenges.
Healthy coral reefs, with their brightly colored corals and bustling schools of fish, are easy to spot underwater. New research into the marine soundscapes of reefs in the Sangkarang Archipelago…
It was in 1859 when British naturalist Charles Darwin published the work that’s still considered the basis of evolutionary biology. With On the Origin of Species, he introduced the scientific…
INÍRIDA, Colombia –– Carolina Mora Gaitan takes one of the striking-looking flowers from the blue bucket lying at her feet and shakes off the excess water. Using a toothbrush, she…
A new model that links climate change-reduced oceanic oxygen levels to smaller ectotherms predicts marine microorganisms could shrink as the world gets warmer, with impacts up the food chain, impacting fisheries.
On July 12, oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright was sealed inside a submersible, traveling to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Wright and…
The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…
A previously unknown genus of primitive giant kangaroo that once roamed the rainforests of New Guinea has been described by a team of paleontologists from Flinders University in Australia. The…
This past June, scientists and researchers gathered outside the office of INPE, Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research, in the municipality of São José dos Campos. They were there to…
In a sterile room, Bertalan Lendvay wields an electric drill that flicks off tiny flakes of precious coral skeletons. Lendvay, a research associate at the University of Zurich’s Institute of…
In the eastern waters off Hong Kong, a group of scientists searching for coral-eating nudibranchs stumbled upon a colorful surprise: three new species of sun corals. These orange, purple and…
In 2005, a chimpanzee named Tico arrived at a rescue center in Spain. The details of his early life were vague: he'd been found roaming in the mountains before being…
Even the greatest, most mobile predators aren’t immune to the shrinking of South America’s forests. The endangered black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori), one of the largest raptors on the continent, has…
Today we’re taking a look at two stories that show the effectiveness of combining traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge and Western science for conservation and restoration initiatives. Listen here: Earlier this…
News articles and opinion pieces have popped up in the pages of different Costa Rican newspapers over the past several years, warning of the imminent collapse of Corcovado National Park,…
When plant systematist Elliot Gardner first began collecting samples of a fruit-bearing tree in Malaysian Borneo, he thought he was looking at just one species. Western taxonomists had long considered…
Plastic has been found in the most unexpected places: in the deepest parts of the ocean, in the remote mountain air, in human blood. And now, it’s even been found…
Scientists have puzzled over the distinctive form of giraffes at least since Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (figuratively) butted heads over how the towering ungulates got their long necks. The…
On a breezeless, sunbaked beach in Borneo, one of the biggest challenges paleobotanist Peter Wilf faced in his team’s hunt for plant fossils was getting used to a new set…
“Initially we were all excited because we had intercepted a record-breaking ivory shipment,” says veterinarian Charlene Fernandez of Singapore’s new Centre for Wildlife Forensics. “But when we started carrying the…
A new book by Wake Smith, “Pandora’s Toolbox,” explores controversial ideas for artificially cooling the planet. Smith discusses the hopes and hazards of geoengineering in an exclusive Mongabay interview.
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…
Agriculture, fossil fuels, deforestation, rising temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, forest fires, floods, droughts. These are just some of the factors and consequences involved in the complex cause-and-effect dynamics of the…
Human transgressions of the biodiversity, land-use, pollution and climate planetary boundaries are altering gut microbiomes across species, impacting human health and ecosystems. But there’s hope.
Caribou are proudly displayed on Canada's 25-cent coin, but in the wild, their populations are on the verge of annihilation. Carmen Richter from the Saulteau First Nations is working to change that. She's…
While at university studying chemical ecology and aquaculture, Andy Rhyne picked up a job at an aquarium shop to raise money for a cross-country bike trip. Though he didn’t know…
Slice through a tree trunk, and you’ll find a series of rings that tell a story of how that tree grew over the course of its life. These rings are…
