Ecology

Black balls that litter the planet may prove the best marker for a new geologic epoch recognizing humanity's outsized impacts

The West is adapting to more wildfires but this season may test its resilience

A team of deep divers plunges into the “twilight zone,” a little-explored region of depth between 200 and 500 feet below the surface, with two goals: "catch fish" and "stay alive".

Climate change will challenge tall trees like California's redwoods

Unusual adrenal and lung conditions seen in dead dolphins in the months after the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill point to the oil as the cause. Steve Mirsky reports

The four-year study took thousands of samples at hundreds of sites

A crude petroleum spill that has stained a California beach and fouled offshore waters may rank as the biggest oil spill to hit the Santa Barbara coastline in more than four decades.

The skin of a California octopus species has a molecular light-sensing mechanism that allows it to change color to match its surroundings with no input from the creature's eyes or brain. Dina Fine Maron reports

New autopsy results confirm mass dolphin strandings largely stemmed from BP's 2010 Macondo well blowout

As the icy region melts, experts grapple with how to simultaneously allow growth and protection

Drugmakers are being asked to spell out their sales according to their use in cattle, swine or poultry as part of a new proposed rule

The International Monetary Fund notes that subsides for burning fossil fuels enrich the wealthy and make air pollution worse