Earlier this year, researchers found new support for this second idea when they measured the extent to which the ability to follow pointing gestures runs in dog families. Puppies who were more closely related to…
Officials at the federal Bureau of Reclamation reported this month that the West’s two big reservoirs—Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona and Lake Powell in Utah and Colorado—are deteriorating toward “dead pool” status, where stored…
Some species, such as peregrine falcons, have higher survival rates or greater reproductive success in cities than in rural areas. Some even prefer urban landscapes. A 2017 analysis of 529 bird species globally found that…
There is no agent of ecological imperialism more ferocious than the wild pig. Wherever Europeans invaded, from the Americas to Australia, so did their pigs, many of which escaped into the countryside to wreak havoc.…
Medici’s death was the first shark fatality in Massachusetts since 1936. “We’re on a trajectory, right?” says Doyle. “It was three bites in 14 months.” After her friend’s paddleboard scare, Doyle cofounded Cape Cod Ocean…
This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.In 1872, when Yellowstone was designated as the first national park in the United States, Congress decreed that it be…
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity. One rural California community has run out of water entirely after its well broke…
This story originally appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration."People don't come to Denali and other parks in Alaska to look at bumblebees, but they should,” says Jessica Rykken, entomologist…
In 2014, a team of behavioral scientists from Harvard and Yale tried to save the future—with a little game theory. Here’s the game part: The researchers broke up a big group of volunteers into five…
An actual space laser is cruising 300 miles above your head right now. Launched in 2018, NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite packs a lidar instrument, the same kind of technology that allows self-driving cars to see in…