Earth and Human Activity

  1. Life

    Plants, animals adapt to city living

    Cities have turned into experiments in evolution for both plants and animals, from the taste of clover to the stickiness of lizards’ toes.

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  2. Plants

    Climate closing the gender gap for this mountain flower

    Among valerian plants, males like it hotter than the females do. So a warming climate has been speeding their migration up once-cool mountainsides.

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  3. Animals

    Current coral bleaching event is the longest known

    Heat stress has led to the longest coral bleaching event on record. Scientists now worry that global warming may make such prolonged crises more frequent.

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  4. Earth

    Helium discovery blows away shortage worries

    Fears that the world may soon run out of helium have been set aside for now by the finding of a huge reservoir of the gas in East Africa.

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  5. Environment

    Scientists Say: Plastisphere

    As plastic floats in the ocean, it can acquire its own colony of microbes and algae. We call this ecosystem the plastisphere.

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  6. Climate

    Last year’s strong El Niño is gone. Next up: La Niña

    The 2015 to 2016 El Niño was one of the three strongest on record. It’s now over. Climate experts now predict a La Niña is on its way.

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  7. Climate

    Volcanic rocks can quickly turn pollution into stone

    A test program in Iceland injected carbon dioxide into lava rocks. More than 95 percent of the gas turned to stone within two years.

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  8. Environment

    Teens use science to worm through plastic waste

    Some beetle larvae can eat plastic, which might be good for our pollution problem. But which types eat the most can vary a lot, these young scientists find.

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  9. Animals

    Catching ‘Dory’ fish can poison entire coral reef ecosystems

    More than half of saltwater-aquarium fish sold in the United States may have been caught in the wild using cyanide, new data show.

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  10. Environment

    Fighting big farm pollution with a tiny plant

    Fertilizer runoff can fuel the growth of toxic algae nearby lakes. A teen decided to harness a tiny plant to sop up that fertilizer.

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  11. Tech

    Concrete science

    Teen researchers are exploring ways to strengthen this building material, use it for safety purposes and use its discarded rubble.

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  12. Climate

    Zapping clouds with lasers could alter Earth’s climate

    Scientists zapped ice crystals in a lab. They were exploring whether this approach might be used to break those crystals in clouds — potentially as a way to cool Earth’s fever.

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