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By fusing satellite, drone and ground-based data with AI-powered analytics, Earth observation systems now provide meter-scale insights (or finer) for key human-driven environmental impacts.

Report identifies ten emerging tech solutions to enhance planetary health

Julian Reingold 4 Nov 2025
NASA's Artemis program plans to return humans to the moon, with the U.S. government agency working with SpaceX to develop the company's Starship human landing system.

Commercial space race comes with multiple planetary health risks

Sean Mowbray 22 Jul 2025
Banner image of experts using NIR technology for laboratory analyses. Image by Miguel Monteiro.

‘Revolutionary technology’ uses scanners for easier species detection in the wild

Mongabay.com 15 Jul 2025
Tyler Kartzinel’s research highlighted the gaps in DNA reference databases in tropical biodiversity hotspots.

DNA sequencing to meet global biodiversity goals: Interview with Tyler Kartzinel

Abhishyant Kidangoor 25 Jun 2025

Young Rwandans support bird conservation through mobile app recordings

Mongabay.com 27 May 2025
Banner image: The Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa captured by the Pléiades Neo satellite. Image courtesy of the Airbus Foundation and Connected Conservation Foundation.

‘Satellites for Biodiversity’ upgrades with new projects and launches insight hub

Kristine Sabillo 26 May 2025
Banner image of Nandera, a crime-fighting African giant pouched rat. Image by Lucia Torres/Mongabay.

Giant rats trained to sniff out illegal wildlife trade

Mongabay.com 15 Apr 2025
Banner image of a wildfire in Umatilla National Forest, by Brendan O’Reilly/U.S. Forest Service–Pacific Northwest Region via Flickr (Public domain).

Innovators battling wildfires with AI, drones & fungi get $50k grants to scale up

Kristine Sabillo 2 Apr 2025
Banner image of a snow leopard in snow by In India travel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

‘Helicopter tourism’ in the Himalayas affecting Sherpas, wildlife

Mongabay.com 10 Feb 2025
INQUIRE, a dataset and evaluation tool, gauges how AI models perform when asked to extract extra information from wildlife photos captured by citizen scientists. The three images (above), showing hermit frogs caught in plastic trash, were clicked by citizen scientists and were used to train the dataset. Images by mferrla (left), anacarohdez (middle) and lexthelearner (right)/iNaturalist.

AI can already identify species in photos. Can it extract even more data?

Abhishyant Kidangoor 5 Feb 2025
Banner image of the spoon-billed sandpaper dubbed K9, courtesy of Dongming Li.

World’s tiniest transmitter finds nesting area of rarest migratory shorebird

Kristine Sabillo 24 Jan 2025
A mushroom on the forest floor.

One atlas to map all ecosystems on Earth: Interview with Yana Gevorgyan

Abhishyant Kidangoor 9 Jan 2025
Banner image of a Palau nautilus, courtesy of the Ocean Exploration Trust.

Research vessel E/V Nautilus spots multiple nautiluses for the first time

Kristine Sabillo 12 Dec 2024

Researchers propose a ‘circular economy’ solution to housing affordability against climate change

Mike DiGirolamo 3 Dec 2024
Banner image of a drone. Image by Potushaft via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Bird-watching with drones? Might want to watch your distance, study says

Kristine Sabillo 28 Oct 2024
A tree in the Serengeti grasslands in Tanzania.

Blockchain as a carbon market fix: Interview with William ten Zijthoff, Flávia De Souza Mendes & Maximilian Rösgen

Abhishyant Kidangoor 19 Aug 2024
Luís Adriano Nascimento, chemist and vice-coordinator of the Laboratório de Óleos da Amazônia (Amazon Oils Laboratory, LOA), stands at a lab bench with a wide collection of Amazonian fruits and seeds used to make oils, biofuels and bioplastics.

Raw materials become high-value bioeconomy goods at an Amazon science park

Sarah Brown 6 Aug 2024
Common zebra (Equus quagga) in Kriger National Park, South Africa.

The Inventory, a Wiki for wild tech: Interview with Jake Burton & Alex Rood

Abhishyant Kidangoor 30 Jul 2024
The two-stage Falcon 9 launch vehicle lifts off Space Launch Complex 40 carrying the SpaceX’s Dragon resupply spacecraft to the ISS.

Space mission that maps forests in 3D makes an early comeback

Abhishyant Kidangoor 17 Jul 2024
A dragonfly perched on a leaf in Thailand.

Reimagining insect research: Interview with Roel van Klink and Leandro Nascimento

Abhishyant Kidangoor 24 Jun 2024
Microplastics

Scientists explore nature’s promise in combating plastic waste

Claire Asher 8 May 2024
Acorns on an oak tree.

Drone cameras help scientists distinguish between drought stress & fungus in oaks

Abhishyant Kidangoor 18 Apr 2024
Ofelia Samboni an Indigenous Yanacona member and landowner in Monclart, holds a stone containing copper. The stone was found in the river close to the mining area. Image by Antonio Cascio for Mongabay.

New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 8 Apr 2024
Producing an AI chip requires 10-15 times more energy than making a standard chip.

Critics fear catastrophic energy crisis as AI is outsourced to Latin America

Gerry McGovern, Sue Branford 21 Mar 2024
Plastic waste in water.

New AI model helps detect and identify microplastics in wastewater

Abhishyant Kidangoor 16 Jan 2024
A school of snappers under a pier

AI and satellite data map true scale of untracked fishing and ocean industry

Elizabeth Fitt 10 Jan 2024

New platform offers toolkit for companies to prove their eco claims

Claudia Geib 16 Nov 2023
A male Allen's hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin).

New AI model gives bird’s-eye view of avian distribution at vast scale

Abhishyant Kidangoor 8 Nov 2023
Digital screens in New York's Times Square.

The Cloud vs. drought: Water hog data centers threaten Latin America, critics say

Gerry McGovern, Sue Branford 2 Nov 2023
Satellite image of Argentina's Patagonia region.

Applications open for Airbus’s ‘Satellites for Biodiversity Award’

Abhishyant Kidangoor 6 Oct 2023
Arctic sea ice.

Sensing tech used in oil pipelines can also track Arctic sea ice, study shows

Abhishyant Kidangoor 11 Sep 2023
Eastern bluebirds

With fewer birds seen on farms, scientists try listening for them

Abhishyant Kidangoor 8 Sep 2023

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