See the World Through Science

Biodiversity & Conservation

Environment
A Laser on the Space Station Is Watching Congo's Forests Grow Back
Ask how long it takes a rainforest to grow back and the honest answer has always been slippery. You can count the trees. You can weigh the carbon. But a mature tropical forest is not just a stand of…
By Anna Kotlyar3w ago4 min read
Environment
More Than Half of Earth's Migratory Birds Are in Decline, a Sweeping Review Finds
A bobolink that summers in a North American hayfield winters in the grasslands of Argentina, a round trip of roughly 12,000 miles. A spoon-billed sandpiper hatched on the Arctic coast of Russia will…
By Oli Kotyk3w ago4 min read
Environment
Fire and Fertilizer Push Alaskan Tundra the Same Way, at Different Speeds
Tussock tundra looks, from the air, like a lumpy green carpet. Up close it is something more particular: a dense mat of mosses and lichens with sedge tussocks rising out of it, a community that…
By Andreja Jezernik4w ago5 min read
Environment
Nowhere Left to Climb: A Volcano's Beetles Run out of Mountain
Climb Volcán Cacao in northwestern Costa Rica and the forest changes under your feet. At the bottom is seasonally dry lowland forest that bakes. About 1,500 vertical meters higher, at the top, is…
By Andreja Jezernik4w ago5 min read