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Anthropocene

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

Age of Humans

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.

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

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.

Age of Humans

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.

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

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

New Research

Are We Living in the Plastic Age?

Scientists argue that this material may best define our current period within the Anthropocene

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

Antarctica as viewed from space. The world's largest ozone hole—now shrinking—opens over Antarctica every year during local summer and shrinks in the winter.

Age of Humans

The Ozone Hole Was Super Scary, So What Happened To It?

When the ozone hole was discovered, it became a worldwide sensation. Thirty years later, what’s become of it?

A man pulls a cart full of empty PC cases that'll be broken down by recyclers in Agbogbloshie, in Accra, Ghana.

Age of Humans

The Burning Truth Behind an E-Waste Dump in Africa

Ending the toxic smoke rising from an iconic dump in Ghana will take more than curbing Western waste

A "wind tree" installed at the COP21 climate talks in Paris. Each tree produces enough energy to light 71 parking spaces (or power one average American home for four months).

Age of Humans

These Creative Wind Turbines Will Have You Rethinking What You Know About Wind Power

Wind turbines don’t have to all look the same. Here are some that are helping cities go green—and look like art in the process

Microbes are now known to play many roles in the upper atmosphere: forming clouds, causing rain, and maybe even changing climates.

Age of Humans

Living Bacteria Are Riding Earth’s Air Currents

The high-flying microbes can travel across the globe, spreading disease or even changing climates

Pollutants hang in the air at a coke plant in Pennsylvania. This plant was photographed in 1973, but humans have been polluting their air for many years before that.

Age of Humans

Air Pollution Goes Back Way Further Than You Think

Thousands of years ago, humans were adding lead fumes and other pollutants to the air

A mushroom cloud rises in the sky during an atomic weapons test in the 1950s.

Age of Humans

The Atomic Age Ushered In the Anthropocene, Scientists Say

Geoscientists have concluded that the Age of Humans officially began at the start of the nuclear age.

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