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Stories from REPRINT AUTHOR PLACEHOLDER

Rising global temperatures may make many cities too warm to host the Winter Games in the future.

In a World Striving To Cut Carbon Emissions, Do the Olympics Make Sense?

Perhaps there is still a case for the greenhouse-gas gushing games if host cities amplify their efforts to showcase green tech and innovations

Driftwood is a valuable resource for humans and all kinds of ecosystems near and far.

How Driftwood Reshapes Ecosystems

In one of nature’s remarkable second acts, dead trees embark on transformative journeys

The American eel fishery has historically focused on mature eels (as shown here), which are exported around the world. But these days, there’s more money to be made from juveniles.

The Epic Fight Over the Enigmatic Eel

The slippery fish is at the center of a Canadian national debate about economics, conservation and Indigenous rights

Healthcare providers leave a village after completion of a culling operation in response to a bird flu outbreak in Budgebudge, West Bengal, India.

The Pandemic Everyone Fears Is Flu In the Wrong Place At the Wrong Time

Governments should constantly be preparing for outbreaks, instead of just hastily responding to threats as they arise

From developmental problems to reproductive issues, drug waste is affecting marine wildlife.

How Drugged-Up Shellfish Help Scientists Understand Human Pollution

These involuntary medicine-guzzlers have much tell us about the consequences of pharmaceutical waste

Whether or not fish feel pain has been debated for years. But the balance of evidence says yes. Now the question is, what do we do about it?

It’s Official: Fish Feel Pain

The verdict is in. But will our oceanic friends ever get the same legal protections as land animals?

Coast guard officers in Costa Rica say they’re understaffed and overwhelmed. “We’re just order,” says Colonel Miguel Madrigal. “Not the law.”

An Unexpected Victim of Costa Rica’s Drug Trade: Fish

The archipelago was once synonymous with tourism, sustainability and biodiversity. Now collapsing fisheries have led to turmoil

H1N1 influenza virus particles shown in a colorized transmission electron micrograph

Scientists Are One Step Closer to a “Personalized” Flu Shot

While still decades away, new research shows how custom vaccines could be developed

Corpsmen in cap and gown ready to attend patients in influenza ward of US Naval Hospital in Mare Island, California, December 10, 1918.

The United States Is Not Ready for Another Flu Pandemic

You might think that today, if a pandemic like the 1918 flu hit, we’d be ready for it. You’d be wrong

In the 20th century, humans exterminated the gray wolf population of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, the largest island on the west coast of North America. The animals repopulated the island by the end of the century, and now live side by side with people.

No One’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf—And That’s a Problem

On Vancouver Island, habituation to humans has made wolves aggressive, fearless and more prone to clashes with people

The Ainu, the Indigenous people of Japan, have fought Japanese domination for centuries. As this century unfolds, their efforts are finally paying off.

How Japan’s Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance

For a long time, Japanese anthropologists and officials tried to bury the Ainu. It didn’t work

A baby gray whale surfaces in Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico.

A Whale’s Baleen Bristles Reveal the Story of Its Life

Like tree rings, these layered plates hold chemical clues to how the animals adapt to a changing world

The H.L. Hunley, a confederate Civil War era submarine, sits in its water tank at the Hunley Lab in North Charleston, SC.

One Scientist May Have Finally Figured Out the Mystery of Why a Civil War Submarine Sank

A Navy engineer used creative modeling and her knowledge of underwater explosions to tackle the century-old Hunley conundrum

Humpback whales sounding in Windham Bay, Alaska.

What Humpback Whales Can Teach Us About Compassion

Are these orca-fighting, seal-saving good Samaritans really just in it for themselves?

A "flukeprint" is a patch of calm water on the surface created when a whale flaps its tail as it cruises along just out of sight.

How to Spot a Hidden Whale

Just as a hunter leaves a trail in the snow, a whale forms prints on the water’s surface

The sun may get all the attention, but our lunar lodestar helps creatures navigate the swells and tides of ocean life.

How Moonlight Sets Nature’s Rhythms

Lunar luster triggers mating orgies, guides travelers and even can even provoke magical transformations

Each time you use your phone's weather app, you're indebted to a self-taught computer scientist named Klara von Neumann.

The Unheralded Contributions of Klara Dan von Neumann

Despite having no formal mathematical training, she was a key figure in creating the computer that would later launch modern weather prediction

Interior and sand floor of the Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue in Willemstad, Curacao

Why Sand Covers the Floor of One of the Western Hemisphere’s Oldest Synagogues

Fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe, Jews found unexpected shelter on the island of Curaçao

The tentacles of the Portuguese man o' war, (which is technically a siphonophore, a group related to jellyfish), contain harpoon-like cells called nematocysts that deliver painful doses of venom.

Forget What You’ve Heard About the Pee Cure, Here’s How to Really Fix a Jellyfish Sting

Scientists studied what to do and what not to do when stung by a jellyfish. The result? Folk remedies are bad.

This celestial chart from 1687 is one of many illustrations from books, charts, and maps showing artists’ imaginings of polar bears.

How Polar Bears Became the Dragons of the North

Renaissance maps depicting the “white bears” say more about our own fears and fantasies than about the predators themselves

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