Ecosystems
A comet impact 13,000 years ago might have wiped out megafauna
Researchers note a "synchronicity" of geochemical signals suggesting that fragments of a comet struck Earth approximately 13,000 years ago.
How years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western megafires of today
The current approach to fire management poses unnecessarily high stakes for forests. Here's why fighting every fire does more harm than good.
Desertification is destroying fertile land. Here’s how we’re fighting it.
Desertification is destroying once-fertile land at an alarming rate, but desert greening techniques are making degraded soil bloom again.
Here’s how growing plants on the Moon could benefit Earth
Making plants grow on the Moon could be instrumental in helping gardens to grow greener on Earth in the face of climate change.
AI is going to revolutionize the weather forecast
A tech startup in San Francisco is going to change how the world sees the weather.
Did life evolve more than once? Researchers are closing in on an answer
Current scientific consensus is that life emerged from non-living molecules in a process called abiogenesis. But if life emerged once, why not more times?
Supercomputers revealed giant “pillars of heat” funnelling diamonds upwards from deep within Earth
Understanding Earth’s internal history can be used to target mineral reserves – not only diamonds, but also crucial minerals.
Nature-based solutions are cleaning up cities
Nature-based solutions can be radical — think covering a highway with a park — but offer meaningful ways to address pollution.
The ocean “twilight zone” could store vast amounts of carbon captured from the atmosphere
There may be ways to enhance natural processes so the ocean pulls more carbon out of the atmosphere to help slow climate change.
Self-sufficient “microgrids” could save you from power grid emergencies
Centralized power systems rely on large power plants and transmission grids, but microgrids are self-sufficient.