Scientists say a drastic cut in meat consumption is needed, but this requires political will

Tens of thousands of Londoners died of cholera from the 1830s to the 1860s. The causes were simple: mass quantities of human waste and industrial contaminants were pouring into the Thames, the central waterway of a city at the center of a rapidly industrializing world. The river gave off an odor so rank that Queen Victoria once had to cancel a leisurely boat ride. By the summer of 1858, Parliament couldn’t hold hearings due to the overwhelming stench coming through the windows.

More than half of female elephants are being born without tusks

Underwater robot has delivered over 100k baby corals in attempt to restore part of the Great Barrier Reef

At a time when the science of global warming is under attack and many people complain of climate change fatigue, some cheering news occurred last month: A book about climate change became a New York Times bestseller in its first week of publication. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by environmentalist Paul Hawken, is the first environmental book to make such a splashy debut since Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe in 2006.

New research suggests that humpback whale populations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are picking up musical ideas from one another, and incorporating the new phrases and themes into their songs. According to the study, published November 28, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Royal Society Open Science, humpback whale populations in different Southern Hemisphere ocean basins (the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans) sing similar song types, but the amount of similarity differs across years.

Moderate earthquakes aren’t releasing enough stress along the region’s faults. They’re actually making it worse.

Even animals that aren’t eating too much or exercising too little are getting fat. If we can figure out why, we may have the key to our own obesity crisis – and how to stop it.

A few blocks down the street from the White House, two dated 1970s office buildings are being combined and renovated into a space that will cut energy use and emissions by more than half. Soon, around half of the existing buildings in the city will also need to make changes under a new law.

The seeds, inside a sealed container, are the first plants ever grown on the Moon's surface.

Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished

Geneticists have begun using old bones to make sweeping claims about the distant past. But their revisions to the human story are making some scholars of prehistory uneasy.

Tracing the origins of the animal rights movement to one truly bizarre 1922 court case.

The next great insect repellent might come from a strain of bacteria that lives inside a common parasitic worm. A study published Wednesday in Science Advances has found that a compound derived from these bacteria is three times more potent than DEET in repelling mosquitoes. More research must be done to demonstrate its safety, but this bacterial chemical could play an important role in the fight against mosquito-borne illness.

A UPS driver is being praised for braving an icy pond to rescue a young dog trapped in the ice. Ryan Arens was on his route shortly before Christmas when he rolled up to a house in Bozeman, Montana, and heard a dog in distress. "This dog was screaming and crying and going crazy," he said.

Several companies are diversifying their businesses, from biofuels to electric vehicles

Lessons from long-lost civilizations. By Hannah Yi.

The first science-based diet that tackles both the poor food eaten by billions of people and averts global environmental catastrophe has been devised. It requires huge cuts in red meat-eating in western countries and radical changes across the world. The “planetary health diet” was created by an international commission seeking to draw up guidelines that provide nutritious food to the world’s fast-growing population. At the same time, the diet addresses the major role of farming – especially livestock – in driving climate change, the destruction of wildlife and the pollution of rivers and oceans.

Climate change-induced melting will raise global sea levels for decades to come

A pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, researchers said, a surprising discovery because the animal was declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago. The finding has led wildlife biologists and others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors had led the animal to near decimation.