Nature & Wildlife
More-than-human animals predate humans on Earth by approximately 500 million to more than 800 million years. While modern humans (Homo sapiens) have existed for only about 300,000 years, the first animal life (likely sponges) appeared in the ocean hundreds of millions of years prior to the human lineage.
Nature & Wildlife
The word birdbrain became a common slang term for a stupid person in the early 20th century. And while it’s still sometimes used as an insult, it’s a misnomer. In fact, the brains of birds are so large (relative to their body size) that scientists say they are practically braincases with beaks.
Conservation
Around the world, the variety of living things—defined as biodiversity—is declining, as increasing numbers of species face the risk of extinction.
Nature & Wildlife
What if all the biodiversity on Earth followed a surprisingly simple pattern? There is a universal rule that applies to everything from dragonflies to forests.
Conservation
It’s July, and I already know what’s coming. Scientists will find that 2025 is one of the hottest years on record, just like 2024 was and 2023 before it. They’ve been warning us for decades that this would happen.
Nature & Wildlife
Captivating remnants of ancient times, fossils offer a window into Earth’s history and the evolution of life. They document the past, providing clues about extinct species, vanished environments and the processes that shaped our planet.
News & More
July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record, according to a recent NASA analysis of global daily temperature data. And 2024 has now officially taken over the title of hottest year on record from the former titleholder, 2023.
Nature & Wildlife
Living in a time of almost daily extinction news, we can’t help but feel a little skip in our hearts when we hear of animal species or acres of forests that have newly been found. Anything to tip the scales back to the heavy side of biodiversity is more than fine in my book.
Conservation
There are big issues and topics that we’ll continue to have to deal with in the upcoming months of 2024, and rapid biodiversity loss in this sixth mass extinction is one of them.
Nature & Wildlife
Today, in what seems to be our never-ending search for happiness, we often describe our longings as the quest for “quality of life.” That idea and the coinage of that phrase, though, actually date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when they were often used in debates about social crises and social progress.
Nature & Wildlife
Highly social and very vocal, African penguins are native to the waters of South Africa. But these endangered birds are now struggling to survive the human impacts and the unfolding climate crisis of the Anthropocene. However, their climate story goes back much further than our modern epoch.
Conservation
In the face of ever-diminishing wildlife in the sixth mass extinction and increasing political complications, it’s gratifying to know that there are still a few, straightforward conservation measures we can undertake right now to protect the wildlife that lives alongside us.
