Anthropocene

Meghan Fellows sprays flame on a patch of lesser celandine, an invasive weed, while volunteer Jim Anderson looks on. If "flaming" the plants (heating them up but not burning them) kills them reliably, the technique may replace pesticides in vulnerable stream environments.

A New Weapon in the War on Weeds: Flamethrowers

Long used in agriculture, land managers are now wondering whether cooking weeds to death is better than pesticides

A worker sorts plastic in a recycling plant in Bangladesh. A new bacteria could make her job obsolete

Could Plastic-Gobbling Bacteria Save the Environment?

Japanese scientists discovered a microbe that digests one of the most common plastics

The tule elk has been reintroduced to its native range at Point Reyes National Seashore in California, but sometimes "rewilding" landscapes brings unintended effects.

It Might Be Impossible to Turn Back the Clock on Altered Ecosystems

"Rewilding" landscapes to return them to a natural state might sometimes be ineffective and even harmful

A mother bonobo and her offspring.

The Surprising Way Civil War Took Its Toll on Congo's Great Apes

Using satellite maps and field studies, scientists found that even small disturbances to the forest had big consequences for bonobos

Shipworms are destructive to driftwood and sunken relics alike, chewing through any exposed planks and destroying entire wreck sites in just years. But until recently, none had been found so far north in such cold waters.

"Termites of the Sea" Found Munching Wood Near Arctic Shipwrecks

The shipworms found in Svalbard may signal an expansion due to ocean warming or be a new species

Stephen Conley flies over Aliso Canyon to take measurements of methane spewing from the natural gas storage facility in Southern California in January 2016.

The Size of the California Methane Leak Isn’t the Scariest Part of the Story

The Aliso Canyon leak doubled Los Angeles’ methane emissions—and it's just one disaster we were lucky enough to find

How to Save the Monarchs? Pay Farmers to Grow Butterfly Habitats

A novel conservation effort aims to fund a habitat exchange to protect the iconic butterflies from extinction

Can humans stop a catastrophic rise in sea levels?

Sea Levels Are Rising More Quickly Than in the Last Two Millennia

Here are five things to know about the rising tide

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.

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

Bigelow Aerospace's proposed space station, Alpha, would be made up of sausage-link-esque blocks, each the size of a school bus.

We Thought We'd Be Living in Space (or Under Giant Domes) By Now

An inflatable space habitat test highlights the futuristic visions we've had for housing, from cities under glass to EPCOT

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

A free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter was installed beneath the front yard of Mr. and Mrs. Murland E. Anderson of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Dig Into the Nuclear Era's Homegrown Fallout Shelters

In 1955, the head of Civil Defense urged everyone to build an underground shelter "right now"

Wild vultures in Mongolia are key components of sky burials.

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

An Indian Municipal Corporation sanitation worker fumigates as part of a drive to curb breeding sites for mosquitoes causing a dengue outbreak in New Delhi in October 2015.

The World's Megacities Are Making Dengue Deadlier

Outbreaks are more common now thanks to bigger cities and more places for mosquitoes to live

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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