John Reid writes: Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that established the Redwood National Park in California 55 years ago. It was a long time coming, with proposals blocked in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s by an industry that was beavering through the most valuable timberlands on the planet. When the National Park Service recommended a… Read More »
Claire Cameron writes: At first, it looked like a sunset. It was just after five o’clock in June. I was running in Toronto beside Lake Ontario when I stopped to glance at my watch and noticed that the sky was no longer blue but a rusted orange. It took only a few breaths to realize… Read More »
Veronique Greenwood writes: For ecologists, tropical rainforests hold many enigmas. A single hectare can contain hundreds of tree species, far more than in forests closer to the poles. Somehow these species coexist in such dizzying abundance that, as naturalists and ecologists have sometimes noted, tropical forests can feel like botanical gardens, where every plant is… Read More »
Charles Digges writes: If, as the saying goes, elephants never forget, then the elephants in the wildlife haven of Gorongosa National Park probably remember Mozambique’s civil war better than some humans do. So indelible are the memories of the country’s 15-year-long civil war, which raged from 1977 to 1992, that they are written in the… Read More »
The New York Times reports: Johannes Fritz, a maverick Austrian biologist, needed to come up with a plan, again, if he was going to prevent his rare and beloved birds from going extinct. To survive the European winter, the northern bald ibis — which had once disappeared entirely from the wild on the continent —… Read More »
CNN reports: As rapidly warming global temperatures help push Antarctica’s sea ice to unprecedented lows, it’s threatening the very existence of one of the continent’s most iconic species: emperor penguins. Four out of five emperor penguin colonies analyzed in the Bellingshausen Sea, west of the Antarctic Peninsula, saw no chicks survive last year as the… Read More »
Kylie Mohr writes: For two years now, scientists, shellfish managers, and tribes have been working to understand how the heat dome that settled over the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2021 affected the places where the ocean and land meet. That heat wave was like nothing in memory. Temperatures soaring as high as 121… Read More »
The New York Times reports: The victim was found along a stretch of beach near the port city of Odesa in southern Ukraine early this summer, cause of death unknown. As a light rain fell in the open field where the necropsy would take place, law enforcement officials, a representative of the local prosecutors’ office… Read More »
CBS News reports: Fireflies are the romantics of the insect world. In the summer months, they emerge from the ground with love on the brain. They only live for two to three weeks once they’ve become full adults and in that time they don’t even eat. They’re too busy flirting. Fireflies — or lightning bugs,… Read More »
Katarina Zimmer writes: As we hang far above the ground on a sunny October day, it would be easy to focus on the blue crests of hills and the small towns tucked in between. But Richard Peters, who’s with me inside a metal gondola mounted onto the maneuverable arm of a crane, points me instead… Read More »
The New York Times reports: Wildfires are getting worse. Parts of the United States, scientists say, are experiencing wildfires three times as often — and four times as big — as they were 20 years ago. This summer alone, smoke from Canadian blazes turned North American skies an unearthly orange, “fire whirls” were seen in… Read More »
Shutterstock/Matt Sheumack By Mike Joy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington You may not have noticed, but earlier this month we passed Earth overshoot day, when humanity’s demands for ecological resources and services exceeded what our planet can regenerate annually. Many economists criticising the developing degrowth movement fail to appreciate this critical point… Read More »
Riley Black writes: The worst day in the entire history of life on Earth happened in the northern springtime. On that day, the last of the Age of Dinosaurs, a roughly seven-mile-wide chunk of rock that had been hurtling towards our orbit for millions of years slammed into Earth’s midsection and immediately brought the Cretaceous… Read More »
BBC News reports: The oceans have hit their hottest ever recorded temperature as they soak up warmth from climate change, with dire implications for our planet’s health. The average daily global sea surface temperature beat a 2016 record this week, according to the EU’s climate change service Copernicus. It reached 20.96C (69.73F) – far above… Read More »
CNN reports: Pedro Garcia nurses a plate of seeds on his lap. “This is my legacy,” he says, tenderly picking up the seed of a mountain almond – a tree which can grow up to 60 meters (200 feet) tall and is a favored nesting spot for the endangered great green macaw. Aged 57, Garcia… Read More »
GrrlScientist writes: Tragically, the global mass extinction event that we find ourselves in the midst of will be even worse than originally predicted, according to a recent study (ref). The international team of scientists came to their conclusion after analyzing population trends data for more than 71,000 animal species — including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,… Read More »
