Environment

Oceans

Deep-sea mining may damage underwater ecosystems for decades

Microbe communities in the seabed off Peru still haven’t fully recovered from being disturbed by a deep-sea mining experiment 26 years ago.

Environment

50 years ago, American waterways were getting more protections

A 1970 bill that became the Clean Water Act helped to double the number of U.S. waterbodies clean enough for swimming and fishing. In January, the U.S. administration changed how waters were defined, effectively removing those protections for half the country’s wetlands.

Environment

A year long expedition spotlights night life in the Arctic winter

Scientists anchored to an ice floe near the North Pole are investigating how life survives polar night and what changes will occur as the Arctic continues to warm.

Climate

These women endured a winter in the high Arctic for citizen science

Two women have spent the winter on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to collect data for climate scientists around the world.

Environment

Legos may take hundreds of years to break down in the ocean

Sturdy types of plastic may persist in seawater for much long than scientists previously thought.

Climate

How Hurricane Maria’s heavy rains devastated Puerto Rico’s forests

Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rican forests in some unexpected ways.

Climate

Fossil fuel use may emit 40 percent more methane than we thought

Ice cores suggest natural seeps release less methane than was estimated, meaning industry produces nearly all of today’s geologic methane emissions.

Science & Society

Turning human bodies into compost works, a small trial suggests

Experiments test the effectiveness and safety of human composting, which may soon be an alternative to burial or cremation in Washington state.

Environment

50 years ago, protests and promises launched the Trans-Alaska Pipeline

50 years ago, the upcoming Trans-Alaska Pipeline prompted an economic boom amid outrage from environmental and Native American groups.

Ecosystems

Fewer worms live in mud littered with lots of microplastics

The environmental effects of microplastic pollution are still hazy, but new long-term, outdoor experiments could help clear matters up.

Earth

Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050

Climate change and deforestation could double the area burned by fire in the southern Amazon by 2050, flipping the forest from carbon sponge to source.

Ecosystems

A newly found Atacama Desert soil community survives on sips of fog

Lichens and other fungi and algae unite to form “grit-crust” on the dry soil of Chile’s Atacama Desert and survive on moisture from coastal fog.