Polar bear and cubs

Are Polar Bears Altruistic or Just Bad At Math?

Polar bear mothers are known to adopt and raise cubs from non-related litters. Why do they make a multi-year commitment to do it?
Cretan rockrose

Plant of the Month: Cretan Rockrose

Cretan rockrose has been used as a medicine for millennia. Its unusual harvesting methods were documented by the ancient historian Herodotus.
Canopy gaps in a forest

Canopy Gaps Define Growth in the Forest

Gaps in the forest canopy can reveal important information, and result in regeneration.
Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities

Deforestation in areas where residents hunt and gather food can lead to malnutrition, food insecurity, and greater forest loss.
A hand feeding a bird on the road

The One Health Framework

A policy framework proposal seeks to elevate the needs and rights of all living organisms in the environment.
Alpine Chickweed

How Does the Warming Arctic Impact Plants?

For flowering plants in the Arctic, cold temperatures don't mean death. But warmer temperatures might.
Illustration of Cassava

Plant of the Month: Cassava

Cassava can grow in hot climates with little rainfall. It may be the "root crop of the century."
Andean ritual with coca leaves

What Coca Means in Peru

Coca has a long history of use in Peru: for sacred ritual, economic productivity, courtship and celebration of life events.
An illustration of flowers and weeds

A Weed is but an Unloved Flower

"Whatever Otherness weeds may possess, it is an outcome of human artifice.”
Antipathes dendrochristos

Meet the Christmas Tree Doppelgängers of the Sea

More than one marine species is named for the beloved evergreens.