Ecosystems

Earth

Common water pollutants hurt freshwater organisms

The germ killers we use and the drugs we take don’t just disappear. They can end up in the environment. There they can harm aquatic organisms, three teens showed.

Microbes

This microbe thinks plastic is dinner

The bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis chows down on one type of polluting plastics. That means it could become helpful in cleaning up environmental waste.

Ecosystems

As big animals poop out

Whales move nutrients from deep ocean to surface waters. From there, nutrients move to land and fertilize continents. But the system is in trouble.

Ecosystems

Two SNS writers win big

Here’s a Cool Job: writing about science. Two people who regularly do that for SNS have just picked up awards for stories on the physics of lightning and how nature recycles the dead to feed the living.

Environment

Humans are ‘superpredators’

A new study compares the hunting habits of wild animals and humans. People, it turns out, are unlike any other predator on Earth.

Agriculture

‘Wildlife-free’ farms don’t make salads safer

Scientists find that removing wildlife from farms did not make raw vegetables safer to eat.

Agriculture

Made in the shade

Agroforestry combines woody plants and agriculture. Growing trees alongside crops and livestock benefits wildlife, environment, climate — and farmers.

Animals

Return of the bed bug

Bed bugs have staged a comeback over the past 15 years. The bloodsucking parasites succeeded through a combination of evolution and luck.

Plants

Desert plants: The ultimate survivors

Creosote, mesquite and other desert plants rely on different adaptations to thrive, even when no rain falls for an entire year.

Animals

Tiny — but mighty — food-cleanup crews

Discarded food wastes can turn city spaces into food courts for disease-carrying rats and pigeons. But a new study shows tiny cleanup crews — especially pavement ants — are doing their best to eliminate such wastes. This, in turn, makes cities less attractive to bigger pests.

Microbes

Recycling the dead

When things die, nature breaks them down through a process we know as rot. Without it, none of us would be here. Now, scientists are trying to better understand it so that they can use rot — preserving its role in feeding all living things.

Environment

Native ‘snot’

The ‘rock snot’ choking rivers may be native algae. Experts blame its sudden and dramatic emergence on changes in Earth’s atmosphere, soils and climate.