Environment

The Atlantic hurricane season may have gotten off to an early start this year, but it’ll probably end with a whimper—at least when it comes to the total number of storms. Twelve named storms are likely to form in 2018, fewer than last year’s 17 and below the 1981-2010 average, according to a forecast Aug. […]

LONDON—A British government report about fracking, which concluded that the method of shale oil or gas extraction increases air pollution, was left unpublished for three years and was only made public just four days after the firm Cuadrilla was given the go-ahead to start the practice in Lancashire. The report was written by the Air […]

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a set of new fuel economy and emissions standards on Aug. 2, estimated to result in 12,700 fewer traffic deaths, make passenger cars more affordable, and give automakers more freedom to create cars based on consumer preference rather than government mandate. Car manufacturers currently are  mandated to incrementally reach an […]

In a tremendous display of grief and maternal instinct, a mother killer whale continues to keep afloat the body of her deceased calf in the waters off the Pacific Northwest. The orca, named J35, or Tahlequah, has been carrying her dead calf since it was born on July 24. The calf only lived a few […]

Biologists found a litter of four mountain lion kittens in the mountains of Southern California earlier this month, the National Park Service (NPS) said on Tuesday. In a bid to track their movement, researchers attached ear tags to the four female kittens; P-66, P-67, P-68, and P-69. They also took tissue samples and gave the wildcats a […]

  The British government says it may ban wet wipes as part of a broader crackdown on plastic trash, in measures designed to protect the environment. If they are outlawed, shoppers will no longer be able to buy them in their current form. Wet wipes are mostly made of polyester and, when flushed down the […]

You can’t see it but, this very moment, millions of viruses are falling on the ground around you. Some might originate from thousands of miles away, riding air currents and piggy-backing dust particles, a new study found. Scientists first hypothesized decades ago that viruses could travel over great distances when they found genetically similar viruses occurring in very […]

The goldfish and koi started surrendering to the surface around Halloween. Bass, crappie, catfish and the distinctive sunfish/bluegill hybrids that inhabited the pond for 140 years followed. Soon the 5.2 acre South Pond in Chicago’s Lincoln Park sported a slick of shiny, golden and still moving fish, kind of like a macabre woman’s drink. It […]

Despite the excitement generated by a somewhat sensationalized research paper released in October, the denizens of North America are not about to be buried beneath an ocean of lava, one geologist claims. Hopefully, that helps everyone sleep a little easier. Everyone in the field of volcanology recognizes that there is a gigantic volcano underneath Yellowstone […]

It’s hard to argue against environmental conservation. That’s why politicians have often used environmental issues to silence opposition, says analyst Rupert Darwall in his new book “Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex.” By tying their goals to environmental legislation, industry and political groups can cloak their ulterior motives in green, […]

Environmentalist Ed Russo’s hate-turned-to-love relationship with Donald Trump started on a golf course in New Jersey in 2002. Russo was the head of a local committee that had made it practically impossible for Trump’s water-guzzling, chemical-using, habitat-destroying golf course to take root in Bedminster, New Jersey. It wasn’t a vendetta against Trump in particular, but […]

A young woman found a living sand dollar and recorded it. The clip went viral again this week. The video, as the uploader notes, shows the “difference between a live and a dead sand dollar.” via GIPHY A sand dollar is a type of burrowing sand urchin belonging to the order Clypeasteroida.   Their related […]

Washing fruits and vegetables is not enough to avoid ingesting pesticides. Americans and people all over the world are eating pesticide residue every day, as has been shown by the presence of pesticides in blood and urine samples taken from broad populations. The health effects could include a greater risk of cancer, reproductive problems, and […]

Video and a photo of a demon-like moth that has four hairy tentacles coming out of its rear have been making waves on the internet. The media, uploaded to Facebook by user Gandik in Indonesia, shows the moth on a white tile floor flexing its hairy tentacles up and down. “This needs to extinct itself […]

If the Yellowstone supervolcano was to erupt, we may get much shorter notice than experts thought, new research suggests. Last time the volcano erupted, ash covered much of the country and blocked the sun for so long it caused a volcanic winter. It burst into the atmosphere with some 240 cubic miles of rock, dust, […]

An ancient skeleton was discovered after Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland. The skeletal remains, believed to be at least 1,000 years old, were found intact at Kilmore Quay, County Wexford, after Ophelia-spawned waves hit a walkway, according to the Irish Daily Mirror. “People out walking discovered the remains on Tuesday afternoon. The area has been sealed off since […]

An elderly, dying chimpanzee was recorded being happy to see a professor, who first met the animal back in 1972. “Mama,” a former chimpanzee matriarch at Royal Burgers Zoo in Holland, was refusing food from zookeepers. Then, she was met by Jan van Hooff, who met her decades ago. The ape was unresponsive and curled […]

A black bear and her three cubs got a helping hand from a human. The cubs decided to go dumpster diving for food but were unable to get out. “They know how to open the latch to the dumpster,” Shirley Schenk, a woman helped rescue the bears, told ABC News. “This mother is notorious in […]

An incredible video shows the moment a mother gray whale lifts her calf from the water. The whales were seen in the San Ignacio Lagoon, and they often approach tourist boats. According to One World One Ocean, which uploaded the clip, the whales seek “human interaction.” “While they could easily avoid the people, whose small […]

The footage shows what appears to be just a spider–but take a closer took. The thing that’s attached to the spider appears to be a nematomorpha worm, a type of parasitic animal known as horsehair worms or Gordian worms. The range in size between 50 to 100 millimeters, and in some cases, they can get up […]