Ecosystems
- Animals
Current coral bleaching event is the longest known
Heat stress has led to the longest coral bleaching event on record. Scientists now worry that global warming may make such prolonged crises more frequent.
- Animals
Uh oh! Baby fish prefer plastic to real food
Given a choice, baby fish will eat plastic microbeads instead of real food. That plastic stunts their growth and makes them easier prey for predators.
- Earth
How ancient African fish feed today’s Amazon
Many of the world’s lushest tropical forests would starve if winds didn’t bring them nutrient-rich dust from across an ocean.
- 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.
- Ecosystems
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.
- Animals
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.
- Animals
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.
- Climate
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.
