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Science / Our Planet

A bowl brimming with Burgundy truffles ready for analysis.

New Research

Good News, Foodies: Truffles Are Not Stuffed With Chernobyl Radiation

Unlike some mushrooms in Europe, truffles do not seem to be accumulating radiation leftover from the infamous nuclear disaster

A biocube is placed in Central Park's Hallett Nature Sanctuary in New York City.

You’d Be Astounded to Learn How Much Wildlife Can Fit Into One Cubic Foot

A whole new world opens up when you try to catalog every visible creature that moves in and out of a biocube set down on either land or in water

This eco-friendly house in the UK is one way that homes might be greener in the future. Another way involves using materials that store carbon or suck it out of the atmosphere entirely.

Age of Humans

Five Ways You Can Store Excess Carbon In Your Home, Literally

New technologies make it possible for your home to not just save energy but actually suck carbon out of the atmosphere

The ground cracks as a waterhole on Navajo lands in Arizona dries up.

How Will Native Americans in the Southwest Adapt to Serious Impacts of Climate Change?

A drying landscape and changing water regime are already affecting tribal lands

Tropical hardwoods wait to be milled into boards near the coastal city of Miri.

In Borneo’s Ruined Forests, Nomads Have Nowhere to Go

The island’s hunter-gatherers are losing their home to the unquenchable global demand for timber and palm oil

Palm oil is extracted from the fruit of oil palm trees.

Giving Up Palm Oil Might Actually Be Bad for the Environment

The trouble with the maligned crop isn’t its popularity, but where it’s planted

The weather breaks in the Comox Valley, and Queneesh makes an appearance.

What Happens to a Town’s Cultural Identity as Its Namesake Glacier Melts?

As the Comox Glacier vanishes, the people of Vancouver Island are facing hard questions about what its loss means for their way of life

Pre Rup Temple rises in the distance as a worker fills a cart during the rice harvest in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.

Podcast: Farming Shaped the Rise and Fall of Empires in Cambodia

Beneath the country’s troubled history with the Khmer Rouge lies a complex agricultural legacy that reaches back centuries

Wild vultures in Mongolia are key components of sky burials.

Age of Humans

Podcast: Why Sky Burials Are Vanishing in Mongolia

In this episode of Generation Anthropocene, urbanization and environmental decline put a sacred ritual for the dead at risk

Outrigger canoes race in the Majuro lagoon in the Marshall Islands. Traditional Marshallese wave piloting uses the feeling of the ocean to navigate precisely across vast stretches of open water.

Age of Humans

Science and Tradition Are Resurrecting the Lost Art of Wave Piloting

Can Marshall Islanders’ unique heritage help them navigate a rising ocean?

Microbeads and other tiny plastics could knock this aphrodisiac off the menu.

New Research

Your Cosmetics May Be Killing a Popular Aphrodisiac: Oysters

Microplastics from beauty products and other sources affected oysters’ ability to reproduce in laboratory experiments

This casket was made from reclaimed wood. At "green cemeteries" around the country, there is a movement to use fewer harmful chemicals and non-renewable resources in funerals and burials.

Age of Humans

Could the Funeral of the Future Help Heal the Environment?

A traditional ten-acre cemetery holds enough embalming fluid to fill a small swimming pool. But there may be a greener way

The porcupine is among the animals that thrive beneath winter snows.

Age of Humans

There’s a Secret World Under the Snow, and It’s in Trouble

How do animals survive under the snow? We’re only beginning to understand—just as climate change may rewrite everything

An arch made from a bowhead whale jaw stands over traditional whaling boats in Barrow, Alaska.

As the Arctic Erodes, Archaeologists Are Racing to Protect Ancient Treasures

Once locked in frozen Alaskan dirt, Iñupiat artifacts are being lost to the sea, sometimes faster than scientists can find them

Journey to the Center of Earth

Journey to the Center of Earth

Drill deep into the mysteries of our home planet, from the surface all the way down to the core

The drill bit that the Atlantis Bank expedition broke near the start of operations. Three of the four "cones" used to dig the hole have snapped off.

A Decades-Long Quest to Drill Into Earth’s Mantle May Soon Hit Pay Dirt

Geologists have had to contend with bad luck, budget cuts and the race to the moon in their efforts to drill deep into our planet

Solar panels and wind turbines could help the U.S. reduce carbon emissions for cheaper than you think.

New Research

The U.S. Could Switch to Mostly Renewable Energy, No Batteries Needed

Better electricity sharing across states would dampen the effects of variable weather on wind and solar power

Rocky bodies that slammed into early Earth might have been integral in setting up the conditions for our magnetic field.

Journey to the Center of Earth

Humble Magnesium Could Be Powering Earth’s Magnetic Field

The common element could have been driving the planet’s dynamo for billions of years

A concept (preliminary) rendering for the Mulciber Stove, which its inventors say gives off less smoke per hour than one cigarette.

Future of Energy

How to Modernize the Wood Stove and Help Save the Planet

The humble wood stove is getting a high-tech makeover, and may be going green

Fossilized microbial mats, or stromatolites are one of the oldest fossils found on Earth. This one lurked in shallow waters 3.4 billion years ago.

Life and Rocks May Have Co-Evolved on Earth

A Carnegie geologist makes the case that minerals have evolved over time and may have helped spark life

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