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Science / Our Planet

A record 105 tons of ivory was burned in Kenya in 2016, destroying tens of millions of dollars in illegal wildlife goods.

Rhino Horn and Tiger Wine: How the Illegal Wildlife Trade Is Growing Bolder

Wildlife author and journalist Rachel Nuwer discusses her new book Poached about one of the world’s fastest-growing contraband industries

The remotely operated vehicle Hercules explores the hydrothermal vents of Lost City during a 2005 expedition.

Diving Deep to Reveal the Microbial Mysteries of Lost City

An expedition sets out this week to explore a field of hydrothermal vents in the deep Atlantic, one of the most extreme ecosystems on the planet

Bloede Dam (ca. 2016) near Ilchester, Maryland

Drones Will Track One of the Largest Dam Removals on the East Coast

When a Maryland dam comes down this fall, a team of scientists will deploy drones to monitor the flow of more than two million cubic feet of sediment

A landslide in the Cusco region of Peru destroyed more than 100 houses in March 2018.

New Software Can Predict Landslides Weeks Before They Happen

Australian researchers are using AI and mathematics to detect tiny changes that may precede the often-deadly events

Two-horned Diceratherium rhinos

When Rhinos Once Roamed in Washington State

Road-tripping through prehistoric times on the West Coast

Svalbard has the densest population of surging glaciers in the world.

What the Surging Glaciers of Svalbard Tell Us About the Future of Rising Seas

Scientists look to the Norwegian archipelago’s fast-moving glaciers to better understand how other accelerating glaciers will behave

Some of the ‘remarkable beetles’ Wallace collected in Borneo.

Tracing Alfred Russel Wallace’s Footsteps Through the Jungles of Borneo

A biologist treks to the site where the little-known naturalist penned a paper on evolution that would spur on a rivalrous Charles Darwin

The residents and tribal members of Isle de Jean Charles are the first federally-funded community to be moved because of environmental degradation and displacement.

Prospects Are Looking Up for This Gulf Coast Tribe Relocating to Higher Ground

As Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles slips away, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe plans community renewal and a museum for their new home

Deciding what, exactly, constitutes a wilderness in the ocean is not completely figured out, though some researchers are trying to find an answer.

Why the Ocean Needs Wilderness

A new study finds that only 13 percent of the ocean can be classified as “wilderness.” But what does this even mean?

A butcher in Meizhou, China

Will China’s Growing Appetite for Meat Undermine Its Efforts to Fight Climate Change?

The country consumes 28 percent of the world’s meat—twice as much as the United States. And that figure is only set to increase.

A starfish and barnacles along the side of a formerly sunken wall

A Photographer Documents the Effects of Climate Change on Maine’s Intertidal Zones

A marine biology student at Northeastern University captures the vulnerable organisms that have to survive high and low tide

Forest near Sarayaku, Ecuador

This Simulation Maps the Rise and Fall of Species Over 800,000 Years

Biogeographers have built a virtual world to trace the emergence and extinction of species during the last eight glacial cycles

A clear day at Acadia National Park in Maine.

National Parks Can Be Just as Smoggy as Major Cities

And it’s scaring away visitors

‘Earthrise,’ which appeared on the cover of the second and third Whole Earth Catalog, was taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders during lunar orbit, Dec. 24, 1968.

50 Years Ago, the Whole Earth Catalog Launched and Reinvented the Environmental Movement

The publication gave rise to a new community of environmental thinkers, where hippies and technophiles found common ground

A male bee releasing its seminal fluid at the USDA bee lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The male does not survive the process.

Is the Key to Saving Pollinators … Honey Bee Semen?

In the hopes of preserving their genetic diversity, entomologists are collecting and freezing this valuable fluid

The link between sunscreen and skin protection is watertight. Unfortunately, many common sunscreens may be devastating for the health of coral reefs.

Can We Create Sunscreen That Protects Both Humans and Coral Reefs?

Sunscreen is vital for skin protection. But researchers are finding that even ‘reef-friendly’ versions may pose serious environmental threats

An ice-loving Weddell seal, equipped with headgear and ready to assist oceanographers.

New Research

How Data-Gathering Seals Help Scientists Measure the Melting Antarctic

Stumped on how to take the temperature of the ocean floor, oceanographers turned to the cutest, most competent divers they knew

Scientists with Smithsonian’s Global Health Program examine a wrinkle-lipped bat, which can harbor a never-before-seen virus.

New Research

A Never-Before-Seen Virus Has Been Detected in Myanmar’s Bats

The discovery of two new viruses related to those that cause SARS and MERS marks PREDICT’s first milestone in the region

Using an artist's tools and the skills of a scientist, Tangerini makes “art in the service of science.”

The Botanical Artist Who Translates Plant Science Into Beautiful Art

The Smithsonian’s first and only botanical illustrator brings her subjects to life in all their scientific glory

Hawaiian monk seals are the country's most endangered marine mammal. Now they face a tiny, but deadly, threat: Toxoplasma gondii.

How the Tiniest of Parasites is Taking Down the Mightiest of Monk Seals

Toxoplasmosis is now the number one disease threat to the recovery of this endangered marine mammal

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