Ecology

Much of the change in climate change is happening to the ocean. It’s not just the extra heat hiding within the waves. The seven seas also absorb a big share of the carbon dioxide released by burning the fossilized sunshine known as coal, natural gas and oil.

With Keystone XL back in the news after the pipeline bill failed to pass the Senate, I pulled up the latest UT Energy Poll data to a look at what we know about public opinion on the topic*.

A new tool may help officials crack down on the illegal wildlife trade. David Biello reports

I came across these incredible videos by John J. King II (AleutianDream on YouTube) and I just had to share them. These snorkelers are in such close and peaceful contact with wild humpbacks and sperm whales in waters near the Dominican Republic, and Dominica respectively.

Early last week, Texas transmission and distribution company Oncor announced a proposal to install 5,000 megawatts of battery energy storage on the Texas grid.

The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was published Monday and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t good news. The Red List, the global inventory of species, now identifies 22,413 species as threatened with extinction around the world.

As a nation's population ages, more and more older people may draw from support systems such as Social Security, yet fewer workers may be around to pay into those systems.

A panel of judges has struck down the environmental clearance for a proposed 3.6 GW coal-fired power plant in Tamil Nadu, India. The decision by the National Green Tribunal responded to an appeal by local villagers who cited concerns about water and air pollution in this already polluted area.

This last month has been extremely stressful for all of us at Sikundur research station in North Sumatra while we've been following two of our favorite orangutans, Suci and her 3-year-old infant Siboy.

Her Deepness. The Sturgeon General. And now: Glamour Girl. On Monday night, renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle earned a new moniker when she joined eight others in receiving a 2014 Glamour Woman of the Year Award at a celebrity-packed Carnegie Hall.

Scientific American health and medicine correspondent Dina Fine Maron talks with Armand Sprecher of Doctors Without Borders, who has fought Ebola in Guinea and Liberia. And Steve talks Ebola with Stanford's David Relman, chair of the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine
 

For a professional blowhard, there is no worse fate than being ignored. So I’m always—well, almost always—delighted when my posts get pushback, especially from people who are smart, well-informed and thoughtful.