Nature & Wildlife
Deserts are far from the lifeless, slow-growing and always arid places they’re often depicted to be. For example, even in Chile’s ultradry Atacama Desert, tiny soil-dwelling nematodes (roundworms) are thriving in surprising diversity.
Nature & Wildlife
July is truly the quintessential summer month. Positioned perfectly at the center of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it features peak sunshine and warm weather, making it the prime time for carefree vacations and outdoor activities. But July is also at the height of mosquito season across most of North America.
Conservation
Do you crave a cup of coffee in the morning like I do? We’re not alone. Globally, people drink more than 2.2 billion cups daily. And someone has to grow all that joe: more than 100 million farmers worldwide produce coffee.
Conservation
Things are vanishing. Here’s an example: humanity has already pushed 60% of Earth’s land outside its safe biosphere zone, with 38% in a high-risk state. Centuries of data confirm how human demands on biomass—from energy production to farming—have destabilized ecosystems worldwide. Asia, Europe and North America show the deepest disruptions, reflecting centuries of land-use change.
Nature & Wildlife
At the end of the year, many of our holiday celebrations revolve around food, such as a Thanksgiving feast or a Christmas dinner. This food-intensive season reminds me of a new concept in nature studies: “nature’s chefs.” In essence, nature’s chefs are organisms that provide food—or the illusion of food—to other organisms.
News & More
While in recent years environmental laws in the United States have faced some of their most severe challenges and rollbacks, it’s encouraging to hear that Europe is now successfully passing several groundbreaking rules to restore nature.
Nature & Wildlife
When people are deciding where to live, factors such as a community’s cost of living, employment opportunities, ease of transportation, and proximity to family and friends are usually considered on a somewhat equal basis. It turns out that for other mammals, the process is a bit more straightforward.
Nature & Wildlife
Think back: remember your New Year’s resolutions? One of them was probably to eat healthier. But, chances are, those promises you made to yourself are becoming a distant memory because studies show that most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by February.
African Safaris
The African nation of Botswana is believed to have the world’s largest population of wild elephants. While the exact number is hard to pinpoint, estimates are that there are between 118,000 to 130,000.
African Safaris
Imagine that you are lactose intolerant, and then you discover that all of the grocery stores in your vicinity sell only dairy products. That’s how a Duke University, North Carolina, ecologist describes the predicament of sifakas, a genus of lemur.
Nature & Wildlife
We still have three weeks until the end of a long and brutally hot summer. At times, it seems the only respite we can get outside during our picnics, state fair visits, outdoor music festivals and cabin-by-the-lake stays is to find some shade, most often under a tree.
Conservation
Brilliant and skillful in its storytelling, the emotions Our Planet evokes are all at once awe-inspiring, mesmerizing and heart-wrenching. This gripping portrait of the critical condition of our planet highlights key conservation issues, which can be boiled down to one problem: our world is becoming less wild.
