Agriculture

Animals

Learning what stresses queen bees could save their hives

Beehives often die off after the queen gets too stressed to make enough babies. New tests could identify what stressed her — and point to solutions.

Climate

Student scientists work to help all of us survive a warmer world

From glaciers in the refrigerator to a rover in the field, here’s how young scientists are looking to help us adapt to climate change.

Agriculture

Scientists Say: Carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are molecules with carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Animals break down these chemicals in food to get energy.

Environment

Pesticides contaminate most food of western U.S. monarchs

Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweeds. A new study finds widespread pesticide use has tainted these plants across the insect’s western U.S. breeding grounds.

Ecosystems

Scientists Say: Prairie

Prairies are flat, fertile grasslands in North America. They are their own unique ecosystem.

Environment

Let’s learn about rain

People need rain for their crops and their drinking fountains. But there sometimes can be too much of a good thing.

Plants

Let’s learn about trees

These long-lived woody plants provide shade for people, homes for animals — and help protect the planet against climate change.

Ecosystems

Groundwater pumping is draining rivers and streams worldwide

Excessive groundwater use could push more than half of the regions that depend on water pumped up from underground aquifers past an environmental tipping point by 2050. That could threaten aquatic ecosystems around the world.

Agriculture

As infections ravage food crops, scientists fight back

Diseases threaten important food crops like cocoa beans, wheat and citrus. Scientists are working to understand these infections — and fight back.

Agriculture

U.S. farmers still use many pesticides that are banned elsewhere

More than one in four of the pesticide used on U.S. farms in 2016 had been banned in other countries.

Agriculture

Get ready to eat differently in a warmer world

Climate change is affecting what we eat, from making crops less productive to making foods less nutritious. Scientists are studying how farmers can adapt.

Tech

Tarzan the robot was actually inspired by a sloth

‘Tarzan’ the robot saves energy by swinging. Someday, it could help with farm work by moving along wires strung across fields of crops.