India Campbell and Child

The New Victims of Climate Change: Plants, Parasites, and Pregnant Women

The recent series of hurricanes has demonstrated, climate change is no longer a nebulous futuristic menace, but an existential threat.
A dwarf epauletted fruit bat flying

Why Human Echolocators Will Never Be As Precise As Bats

Research seems to indicate that human echolocation is surprisingly sophisticated, and may aid a deeper understanding of hearing and sensory perception.
Piper Cub plane farmers

An Airplane in Every Barn?

Why airborne farming hasn’t been cleared for take-off.
tattoo artist

Why Doesn’t the FDA Regulate Tattoo Ink?

Are there serious adverse effects to injecting industrial paint under your skin? Nobody really knows. The inks used are not FDA-approved.
acorn lyme disease connection

Can the Acorn Crop Predict Lyme Disease?

Will cutting fewer forests, where tick hosts and their predators live, help curb Lyme disease? Scientists debate.
frame capture

Facing Ourselves Online

The photographic pressure to curate our faces is inextricable from the online pressure to curate our lives; to present and perform.
Bushy-tailed woodrat

When Packrats’ Hoards Are Helpful

Packrat nests, preserved by a combination of the chemistry of urine and the desert air, open a window into centuries of local climate change.
Smokestacks with pollution

Plastic in Your Beer, Toxins in Your Air, and Heavy Metals on Your Doorsteps

From household plastic to industrial waste, anthropogenic activity has created compounds that poison ecosystems from water to air.
Drained Tampa Bay

When the Sea Recedes

When caused by storms, receding oceans are result of an inverted storm surge, a “negative surge.” Storm surges have a few causes.
Floating fire ants

Fire Ants Form Rafts to Float on Water

Floating masses of fire ants have been observed drifting in the floodwaters resulting from Hurricane Harvey. How does a swarm of fire ants float?