Environment

Earth

Plastic drinking water pipes exposed to high heat can leak hazardous chemicals

Lab tests exposing commonly used water pipes to wildfire-like heat show damaged pipes can leach the carcinogen benzene and other chemicals.

Animals

Plastic waste forms huge, deadly masses in camel guts

Eating plastic isn’t just a sea animal problem. Researchers found suitcase-sized masses of plastic in dromedaries’ guts in the United Arab Emirates.

Environment

Plastics are showing up in the world’s most remote places, including Mount Everest

From the snow on Mount Everest to the guts of critters in the Mariana Trench, tiny fragments called microplastics are almost everywhere.

Animals

How frigid lizards falling from trees revealed the reptiles’ growing cold tolerance

Some Florida lizards’ ability to handle temperatures down to 5.5° C may provide clues to how they might deal with the extremes of climate change.

Environment

How planting 70 million eelgrass seeds led to an ecosystem’s rapid recovery

The study is a blueprint for restoration efforts that capitalize on seagrass habitats’ capacity to store carbon and that can be replicated elsewhere.

Environment

Invasive jumping worms damage U.S. soil and threaten forests

Also known as snake worms, these writhing wrigglers turn forest leaf litter into bare ground, changing soil composition and ecosystems as they go.

Environment

What we know and don’t know about wildfire smoke’s health risks

As wildfires become more frequent and severe in California, Oregon and throughout the West Coast, concerns rise about harmful air pollution.

Environment

This moth may outsmart smog by learning to like pollution-altered aromas

In the lab, scientists taught tobacco hawkmoths that a scent changed by ozone is from a favorite flower.

Earth

Improved three-week weather forecasts could save lives from disaster

Meteorologists are pushing to make forecasts good enough to fill the gap between short-term and seasonal.

Climate

Emissions dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. The climate impact won’t last

New estimates suggest coronavirus shutdowns cut global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by nearly 30 percent, on average.

Ecosystems

To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan

Biologists have just begun to learn whether their bold plan worked to save the golden riffleshell, a freshwater mussel teetering on the brink of extinction.

Health & Medicine

Many U.S. neighborhoods with the worst air 40 years ago remain the most polluted

Air pollution has declined in the United States, but marginalized communities are still disproportionately affected despite the improvement.