Environmental, Health and Safety News | Volunteer EHS News Network Dedicated to Protecting People & Our Planet

Baltimore aspires to ‘zero waste’ but recycles only a tiny fraction of its residential plastic

Read the full story at Inside Climate News. A new report ranked Baltimore last among five cities studied for recycling rates. But the problem lies with plastic itself: Most of it never gets recycled. Read more →
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The millionaire rewilding the countryside, one farm at a time

Read the full story at The Guardian. Julia Davies had one only goal in mind when she sold her share of the outdoor equipment company Osprey Europe a few years ago. The entrepreneur decided she was going to spend her millions turning back the clock – by returning swathes of the British farmland to...
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Climate change is the greatest threat to public health, top medical journals warn

Read the full story from NPR. The rapidly warming climate is the “greatest threat” to global public health, more than 200 medical journals are warning in an unprecedented joint statement that urges world leaders to cut heat-trapping emissions to avoid “catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.” Read more →
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Komodo dragon in danger of extinction as sea levels rise

Read the full story in The Guardian. The komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, is threatened with extinction as rising water levels driven by the climate crisis shrink its habitat, according to the latest “red list” update. Read more →
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Money and range: Experts note roadblocks to EV adoption

Read the full story at Utility Dive. The smaller the truck, the smaller the battery, which is why fleets such as PepsiCo’s target medium-duty vehicles for electrification. Read more →
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Mondelez issues sizable green bond

Read the full story at Food Business News. Mondelez International Holdings Netherlands BV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mondelez International, Inc., on Sept. 3 priced its first green bond. Valued at €2 billion ($2.375 billion), it is the largest ever green bond in the packaged foods and consumer goods industry, according to Mondelez. Read more...
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Tesla says it can now recycle 92% of battery cell materials

Read the full story at Interesting Engineering. Tesla released its 2020 Impact Report this week, in which the electric vehicle (EV) automaker claims it has the capacity to recover approximately 92 percent of battery cell materials thanks to ongoing improvements to its recycling process. The company has been working with third-party recycling firms for years to...
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2021 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards finalists announced

My favorite annual photography competition has announced their 2021 finalists. Vote for your favorite (good luck choosing just one) for the People’s Choice Award. Winners will be announced on October 22. Read more →
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Ritter Sport targets eco traveller with new green packaging

Read the full story at Confectionery News. Ritter Sport is targeting the travel retail market with the introduction of updated packaging designs that feature across its bestselling products. Read more →
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Protecting biodiversity ‘crucial’ to fighting hunger: IFAD

Read the full story at Food Navigator. Increased investment in biodiversity is needed to eradicate hunger and achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Read more →
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NICFI tropical forest basemaps now available in Google Earth Engine

Read the full story at Planet. In an effort to enable greater impact from the NICFI Satellite Data Program, Planet has teamed up with Google to make high-resolution, tropical forest Basemaps available within the Earth Engine platform. This brings the power of Google’s cloud to the entire NICFI community to run analysis at regional and global...
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Keeping Trash Out of the Great Lakes: EPA Awards over $725,000 to Address Trash in Lakes Erie and Michigan

City of Erie, Pennsylvania, and University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh to implement trash collection projects to reduce trash in Lake Erie and Lake Michigan CHICAGO (September 23, 2021) – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh $417,830 and the city of Erie, Pennsylvania $309,300 to keep litter and trash out of...
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MacArthur Foundation dumping fossil fuel investments

Read the full story in Crain’s Chicago Business. The Chicago-based nonprofit joins Harvard University and the Rockefeller Foundation in shunning oil and gas investments and doubling down on a commitment to fight climate change. Read more →
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Illinois just won a big green jobs victory

Read the full story at Jacobin. In Illinois last week, a coalition of unions and environmentalists scored a major victory with a law providing for a miniature Green New Deal: billions invested in clean energy, a commitment to decarbonizing, solid labor standards, and embrace of nuclear power. Read more →
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Illinois now boasts the ‘most equitable’ climate law in America. What will that mean?

Read the full story in the Chicago Sun-Times. Besides setting targets for a switchover to clean energy, it comes with promises of equitable job creation and an emphasis on helping communities hit hardest by fossil-fuel pollution. Read more →
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The European Union wants a universal charger for cell phones and other devices

Read the full story from NPR. If you live in the European Union, your days of futzing around with a handful of chargers to find one that fits your latest gadget may be numbered. Under a proposal released Thursday by the E.U., there would be one universal charger for all cell phones and other...
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EPA finalizes rule cutting use of potent greenhouse gas used in refrigeration

Read the full story at The Hill. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday is finalizing a rule aimed at significantly cutting the use of a type of greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons that are used in refrigeration. Hydrofluorocarbons, also known as HFCs, can have up to 14,800 times the climate impact of carbon dioxide. The new...
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High-power wireless vehicle charging technology licensed by HEVO

Read the full story from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has licensed its wireless charging technology for electric vehicles to Brooklyn-based HEVO. The system provides the world’s highest power levels in the smallest package and could one day enable electric vehicles to be charged as they...
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App eliminates food waste, supports local businesses and saves users money

Read the full story at Triple Pundit. Discounted food, supporting local business, eliminating food waste and an element of surprise – the only thing Too Good To Go, a food app committed to ending food waste, is missing is a market in my stomping grounds of Atlanta (reference “heartbroken” in the dictionary for an apt...
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In the Amazon, the world’s largest reservoir of biodiversity, two-thirds of species have lost habitat to fire and deforestation

Read the full story at Inside Climate News. A new report finds that up to 85 percent of threatened animal and plant species have had their habitat damaged by mining, agriculture or logging. Read more →
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As DOE ramps up Hydrogen Shot initiative, debate about means of production begins

Read the full story at Utility Dive. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm kicked off a summit on the Hydrogen Shot — a challenge from the Department of Energy to industry and academics to find a means of cutting the cost of hydrogen to $1 per kilogram — with a call for participants to focus on clean, zero carbon...
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Meet Maryland’s ‘boat whisperer’ who carves old kayaks into hand paddles for charity

Read the full story at DCist. John Su is sweating. On most weekdays, the special education teacher would be in his classroom with high school students. But even under the shade of his garage, Su feels the swelter of the summer day as he hacks away at a worn kayak scraped up beyond repair....
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Women face motherhood penalty in STEM careers long before they actually become mothers

by Sarah Thebaud and Catherine Taylor (University of California Santa Barbara) The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Unfounded assumptions about how motherhood affects worker productivity can harm women’s careers in science, technology, engineering and math long before they are – or even intend to become –...
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Researchers infuse bacteria with silver to improve power efficiency in fuel cells

Read the full story from the University of California – Los Angeles. A team of engineers and chemists has taken a major step forward in the development of microbial fuel cells — a technology that utilizes natural bacteria to extract electrons from organic matter in wastewater to generate electrical currents. Read more →
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‘Driving’ innovation to help eliminate plastic waste

Read the full story from the University of Missouri. University of Missouri engineers are working with Dow and the Missouri Department of Transportation to test the use of plastic waste in road pavement mixtures. Read more →
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Illinois researchers’ onboard CO2 capture tank could decarbonize long-range vehicles

Read the full story at Centered. Public discussions about transportation electrification often center on cars, trucks, and buses. Little attention tends to go toward electrifying cargo and tanker ships, which account for about 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Northwestern University researchers developed a patent-pending onboard carbon capture technology they say works for long-range vehicles like...
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New renewable energy source discovered in bacteria

Read the full story from Cornell University. Cornell bioengineer Buz Barstow, Ph.D. ’09, is trying to solve a big problem: How to build a low-cost, environmentally friendly and large-scale system for storing and retrieving energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Currently, there are no sustainable methods for storing green energy, as...
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Twelve and LanzaTech partner to produce the world’s first polypropylene from CO2

Read the company news release. Carbon transformation company Twelve and biotechnology company LanzaTech have partnered to transform CO2 emissions into polypropylene, a key polymer used for medical devices including syringes and IV bags, as well as for large-scale applications in automotive, furniture, textiles and other everyday products. Twelve’s carbon transformation technology converts CO2 into materials that are traditionally made from...
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The geothermal option — an opportunity not to be missed

Read the full story at The Hill. Many U.S. presidents, congressional and state leaders — and an increasing number of businesses, large and small — are emphasizing that our energy system must reduce carbon emissions and use more sustainable resources. They also support fixing our infrastructure. Repairing bridges and roads and deploying renewable domestic...
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10 Years of Innovative Stormwater Solutions: The Campus RainWorks Challenge Brings the Next Generation of Environmentalists to the Table

Read the full story from U.S. EPA. In 2012, EPA’s Office of Water began the Campus RainWorks Challenge, a green infrastructure design competition open to undergraduate and graduate students at colleges and universities in the United States and its territories. The challenge requires multidisciplinary student teams specializing in engineering, landscape architecture, life sciences, and...
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Open access to data is critical in a democracy

Read the full story from the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Corporations are under no obligation to make their archives accessible, unless legislation compels them. Read more →
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Royal Society of Chemistry launches open access journal Energy Advances

Read the full story from the RSC. Our new Gold Open Access journal Energy Advances focuses on energy science, and in particular the interdisciplinarity required for exciting breakthroughs in the field. Energy Advances welcomes research from any related discipline including materials science, engineering, technology, biosciences and chemistry. Our aim is for it to embrace exciting energy science...
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Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe – Safer Degreasing Products

Download the document. The job is to repair, and tune cars and trucks. Keeping these vehicles running requires the use of an engine degreaser or brake cleaner to remove grease and grime so the mechanics can identify issues and make repairs. Unfortunately, most brake cleaners contain chemicals that are harmful to human health and...
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Preprint ban in grant applications deemed ‘plain ludicrous’

Read the full story from Nature. The Australian Research Council’s decision to reject early-career funding applications that mention preprints is hopelessly outdated, say scientists. Read more →
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Family Martial Arts Center Kicks OutHarmful Disinfecting ChemicalsWhile Defending Against COVID-19

Download the document. In preparation for reopening their karate studio after being closed for four months in thebeginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the owners of Family Martial Arts Center (FMAC) ofLeominster, Massachusetts, needed to identify a reliable source of cleaning and disinfectingproducts. They knew they needed to increase the frequency of cleaning and disinfectingrequired...
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Champion unveils sustainable line with The Renewal Workshop

Read the full story at Fashion United. Athleticwear brand Champion has unveiled a new sustainable line with The Renewal Workshop, which turns discarded clothing and textiles into renewed apparel. Read more →
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Removing urban highways can improve neighborhoods blighted by decades of racist policies

by Joan Fitzgerald (Northeastern University) and Julian Agyeman (Tufts University) The US$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now moving through Congress will bring money to cities for much-needed investments in roads, bridges, public transit networks, water infrastructure, electric power grids, broadband networks and traffic safety. We believe that more of this money should also fund the...
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P.E.I. farmers test out ways to reduce greenhouse gases and store carbon

Read the full story from the CBC. Mark and Sally Bernard of Barnyard Organics in Freetown, P.E.I., are part of the new P.E.I. Agriculture Climate Solutions Program, funded by the provincial and federal governments. Read more →
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Consumer & beauty brands collaborate on environmental impact scoring system for cosmetics

Read the full story at ESG Today. Beauty and consumer products companies Unilever, Henkel, L’Oréal, LVMH and Natura &Co announced today a new collaboration to develop an environmental impact assessment and scoring system for cosmetic products. Aimed at meeting growing consumer demand for transparency into the impact of products, the new system will provide...
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Why you should kill this colorful bug on sight, officials say

Read the full story from 5Chicago. The spotted lanternfly might look beautiful, but if you see one in person, officials want you to kill it immediately and then report it. What misfortune has befallen this one-inch insect with two sets of spotted, banded wings? Turns out the spotted lanternfly is a federally regulated invasive...
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With help from citizens, Montreal researchers are tracking the trees in people’s backyards

Read the full story from the CBC. Environmental scientists have a lot of ground to cover, so they’re calling on a small army of citizens to help. Read more →
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We’re breathing PFAS: URI-led study finds harmful forever chemicals in indoor air

Read the full story from the University of Rhode Island. The air we breathe in our homes, schools, and workplaces can be polluted with harmful PFAS chemicals, according to a study published today in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. A new measurement technique developed by the research team, led by URI Graduate School of Oceanography scientists, detected...
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UN launches online tool to help humanitarians assess environmental risks in urban areas

Read the full story from the United Nations Environment Programme. The United Nations today launches an online tool to help humanitarian practitioners rapidly identify and mitigate environmental risks when responding to crises in urban areas. The free, cloud-based Urban-Nexus Environmental Assessment Tool (U-NEAT+) offers an easy way to assess a range of potential environmental threats and...
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Using satellite data for journalism — what I learned from the experts

Read the full story at Satellite Journalism.com. For reporters, satellite data offers unique opportunities for original investigations and visual storytelling. But how do you get started? And what should you be looking out for? I spoke to four journalists who regularly work with satellite data about how to start, best practices and — most...
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The push for open access is making science less inclusive

Read the full story at Times Higher Education. Researchers in developing countries could be frozen out by high article charges unless wider publishing reform is undertaken, say four Brazilian researchers. Read more →
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NIEHS helps NIH take top honors in International Freezer Challenge

Read the full story at Environmental Factor. NIEHS efforts to store research samples more sustainably helped the National Institutes of Health (NIH) win the Top Government Organization Award in the 2021 International Freezer Challenge for the second year in a row. The Freezer Challenge is a cold storage competition for laboratories, and it is run by My...
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Lack of non-English languages in STEM publications hurts diversity

Read the full story from Northwestern University. With today’s existing translation tools to overcome language barriers, global collaboration should be no major feat for researchers. Yet throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, articles published in Chinese journals focusing on critical aspects of the disease were often never cited by English journals. As a result, U.S. academics...
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Hi-tech wooden flooring can turn footsteps into electricity

Read the full story in The Guardian. Swiss scientists develop prototype ‘nanogenerator’ that produces renewable energy when trodden on. Read more →
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River Wye pollution: Campaigners call on poultry firms to act

Activists have called on two major poultry suppliers to take action to protect the River Wye from pollution. The river, which flows through Wales, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, has excessive algae growth often caused by high phosphate levels in the water.
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Air Quality Life Index: 2021 Annual Update

Download the document. New data from the AQLI underscores the health threat of a world without policy action. Unless global particulate air pollution is reduced to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guideline, the average person is set to lose 2.2 years off their lives. Residents of the most polluted areas of the world...
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In Colombia, legal mining proves a win-win for environment, traditional communities

BOGOTÁ — In Colombia’s Chocó department, renowned by environmentalists for its abundant biodiversity, Afro-Colombian communities collect gold from rivers as part of an ancestral way of life. “When we...
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Bezos, Bloomberg among donors committing $5b to expand protected areas

A group of philanthropic organizations has come together to pledge $5 billion for the creation and expansion of protected areas across the planet, one of the largest private investments...
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Overfishing threatens to wipe out bowmouth guitarfish in Indonesia, study says

BOGOR, Indonesia — The population of the nearly extinct bowmouth guitarfish in Indonesia is being depleted by overfishing, according to a recent study that calls for a reduction in...
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Links to coal mining add to Indonesian palm oil sector’s risk for buyers

JAKARTA — Consumer goods behemoths such as Unilever, PepsiCo and Nestlé that buy palm oil from Indonesia may be exposed to the environmental and social fallout from a seemingly...
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Snapshot of hatchlings raises hopes for Siamese crocs in northeast Cambodia

They say you should never smile at a crocodile. But that’s exactly what happened on Sept. 9 when a team of researchers discovered a group of eight Siamese crocodile...
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Causes for celebration, and concern, on World Gorilla Day

September 24 marks World Gorilla Day, set aside to celebrate these threatened giants of the forest as well as to renew calls for action to protect them. All gorilla...
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Philippine-UK comic anthology looks to incite action on climate change

2020 will forever be remembered as the year a global pandemic brought the world to its knees. But at the rate the planet’s temperature is rising, forever might not...
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Congo’s bongos are in danger, and curbs on trophy hunting could save them

When the first bongo was reported dead by the Sangha River in the Republic of Congo in 1997, it was believed to have drowned. Several more turned up in the...
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For World Gorilla Day 2021, a conservation success story

I saw my first wild gorillas in Rwanda in 2002 and I was immediately drawn in by their power, their beauty, and the awareness that these amazing creatures were,...
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Bridge the North-South divide for a UN Biodiversity Framework that is more just (commentary)

This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly....
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Fires bear down on Brazil park that’s home to jaguars, maned wolves

Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as...
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Jane Goodall launches effort in support of planting 1 trillion trees by 2030

Primatologist and conservation icon Jane Goodall has formally joined a global effort to counter climate change and the extinction crisis by planting a trillion trees within a decade. On...
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Forest fragmentation split up this lizard’s population. It’s no longer the same

COLOMBO — The leaf litter and other decaying plant matter that carpet Sri Lanka’s lowland rainforests are potential lurking points for numerous blood-sucking leeches and hideouts of some venomous...
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Remnant forests struggle to survive amid oil palm plantations, study shows

JAKARTA — Most forest trees that persist in areas dominated by oil palm plantations die before they can mature, a new study shows, emphasizing the urgency of conserving or...
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Novel entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?

Hinkley, California, USA, 1952-1966: A Pacific Gas and Electric powerplant releases 1.4 billion liters (370 million gallons) of wastewater laced with carcinogenic chromium-6 into unlined ponds, polluting groundwater for...
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Shea trees are falling fast across Africa, victims of new pressures (commentary)

Across the African savanna belt from Senegal to Ethiopia, threats to shea trees (Vitellaria paradoxa) — the source of shea butter — have become a regional environmental concern. At...
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New checklist aims to tackle racism in conservation science at academy level

Nearing the end of her undergraduate studies in ecology, Drea Darby sat frustrated at her desk, searching for jobs in conservation. She had envisioned a career out in the...
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When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong

On a cold and humid morning in March, two bird surveyors stood in the dim forests of Kenaboi State Park in Malaysia, straining their ears for birdsong. From where...
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Countering Bolsonaro’s UN speech, Greenpeace releases Amazon deforestation photos

Hours after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro painted a rosy picture of his administration’s environmental record during a United Nations speech, Greenpeace and other environmental groups released a set of...
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Thanks to the Yurok Tribe, condors will return to the Pacific Northwest

Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing...
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Fires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species

Since 2019, deforestation and fires have caused the Brazilian Amazon to lose about 10,000 square kilometers of forest cover per year – a high and alarming increase over the...
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Cloudy and cool: climate prospects from mid-latitude tree planting, study

Planting trees seems to be a simple solution to the climate crisis. As trees photosynthesize, they capture carbon dioxide and lower the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,...
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The cat is back: Wild Amur tigers rebound in China, thanks to govt policies

There was a time when tiger expert Dale Miquelle wasn’t sure if there’d ever be a substantial population of Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in China again. In the...
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Indigenous Land in the Brazilian Amazon is a brake on deforestation and may start generating carbon credits

“I believe that those who used to buy soursop juice will stop buying it,” says José Marcondes Puyanawa. “They will stop buying it because they have it in their...
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Small cats should be a conservation priority, says Panthera’s new board chair Jonathan Ayers

Most people are familiar with the world’s “big cats”: Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguar, puma, and cheetah. But far fewer people know about the much larger number of small cat...
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Extinction of indigenous languages leads to loss of exclusive knowledge about medicinal plants

“Every time a language disappears, a speaking voice also disappears, a way to make sense of reality disappears, a way to interact with nature disappears, a way to describe and name animals...
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What the Mauritius kestrel can teach us about wildlife reintroductions

They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to...
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Sea turtles: Can these great marine migrators navigate rising human threats?

For millions of years, countless sea turtles navigated the world’s oceans, migrating vast distances between foraging sites and natal nesting beaches. But today, those long journeys repeatedly expose them...
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Domestic bushmeat consumption an “urgent” threat to migratory mammals, U.N. says

Every October, at least 10 million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) arrive in Kasanka National Park in Zambia from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides its...
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MEDIA ADVISORY: CSB Held a Public Board Meeting on September 24, 2021, and Released Two Final Investigation Reports

CSB Held Public Meeting on AB Specialty Silicones and Evergreen Packaging Investigations
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‘Conservation should be seen as what communities have always done’, says John Kamanga

Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from “fortress conservation” — where local people are excluded from the lands they’ve traditionally managed — toward more...
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11 Mongabay investigations in two years. Here’s what we found

As deforestation and the violation of Indigenous land rights continue to be an ever-present part of the global supply chain, many consumers (and even investors) are calling for transparency...
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Researchers express alarm as Arctic multiyear sea ice hits record low

Early in July, Arctic sea ice seemed primed to set a new record at the annual minimum — the date in September when ice floating atop the ocean reaches...
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With coral cover halved, curbing climate change is only way to slow the loss

Scientific literature is rife with accounts of desolate reefs bereft of corals, drained of color and sea life. A meta-analysis published Sept. 17 shows that these are not isolated...
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Faroe Islands to evaluate traditional hunt after slaughter of 1,400 dolphins

The recent killing of 1,428 white dolphins in the Faroe Islands has brought renewed scrutiny to the island nation’s long-held tradition of driving cetaceans into shore and butchering them...
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For sustainable global fisheries, watchdogs focus on onshore beneficial owners

JAKARTA — When the STS-50 was seized in Indonesian waters for illegal fishing in April 2018, it became the poster child for global efforts to reveal the true identity...
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Railroad and mine projects stir up anxiety in rural Brazil communities

It happened eight years ago: Elicarlos Ferreira da Silva and his family were returning home one afternoon from the town of Caetité in Brazil’s Bahia state when they were...
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Scientists look to chimps’ past to gauge their future under climate change

Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected...
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For Indonesian MPs, Indigenous rights may be bad for business, report says

JAKARTA — A long-delayed bill on Indigenous rights continues to languish in parliament because most lawmakers have business interests that are threatened by the acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights,...
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The secret lives of common hippos | Candid Animal Cam

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we are meeting the common hippo. Common hippos...
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The Pantanal is burning again. Will it be another devastating year?

The fires that tore through South America’s Pantanal region in 2020, destroying 30% of its area, are still scorched in memory. And now, the world’s largest wetland that fans...
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An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers

What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo...
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Jakarta court finds president, governor liable for city’s air pollution woes

JAKARTA — A court in Jakarta has found the Indonesian government, including President Joko Widodo, negligent in a citizen lawsuit filed against the poor air quality in the capital....
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Creation of three new northern white rhinos embryos may indicate hope for other rhino species

In early July, the ephemeral promise of a new life blinked into existence. Not in the usual way, but on a clear microscope slide in a sterile lab in...
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Illegal logging reaches Amazon’s untouched core, ‘terrifying’ research shows

One of the main fears about the Brazilian Amazon is beginning to materialize: logging is starting to move from the periphery of the rainforest toward the core of the...
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Podcast: Are tuna doing as well as latest extinction risk assessments suggest? It’s complicated

Today we take a look at some of the key outcomes of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, a global gathering of governments, scientists,...
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Mycoremediation brings the fungi to waste disposal and ecosystem restoration

We see disposable masks everywhere these days. Littered on the street and sidewalks, hanging out of garbage cans, floating through the neighborhood on a windy day. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous...
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Saving sea turtles in the ‘Anthropause’: Successes and challenges on the beach

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Beaches across the planet emptied as COVID-19 spread in 2020, with the first full lockdowns in many places coinciding with sea turtle nesting season. With less...
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Pepé Le New: Meet the acrobatic spotted skunks of North America

The familiar striped skunk of North America (think of the cartoon Pepé Le Pew) has a lesser-known cousin: the spotted skunk. These polka-dotted relatives are smaller, about the size...
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Fashions to die for: The fur trade’s role in spreading zoonotic disease

In the complex universe of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases (those that can jump from animals to humans and back), key questions remain largely unaddressed, including what role fur...
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