Tag: nature

Underneath the beautiful surface of federal lands are stories of danger, harassment, and billionaire privilege.

In one Alaskan town, the bone pile is a bounty for hungry polar bears and enterprising tour guides.

Scientists closely monitor the last member of a species. Is there space in a creature’s DNA to consider the prospect of no tomorrow?

At Outside, the disappearance of a teenage runner in Colorado brings up the question: Who searches for the people who disappear on American public lands?

On birding as an extreme sport, and how observing birds satisfies a “bone-deep, soul-deep need to classify and organize the world around us.”

In Canada’s most easterly province, volatile weather conditions and cultural isolation produced a fascinating vocabulary to describe the natural world.

The contrasting conditions of the resurgent Föritz and the depleted forests of Albania are a microcosm of the planet. We are living in the Anthropocene, a time when human activity, more than anything else, shapes the earth’s climate and ecosystems. Our hunting, fishing, deforestation, overgrazing, and pollution have created a period of mass extinction the likes of which haven’t occurred since the dinosaurs. E. O. Wilson, the preeminent biologist and conservationist, predicts we could lose half of all species on the earth by the end of this century.

Scientists are trying to uncover why some people are better able to recover from trauma than others: After Ebaugh crawled up the rocky riverbank, a truck driver picked her up, took her to a nearby convenience store and bought her a cup of hot tea. Police, when they arrived, were sympathetic and patient. The doctor […]

The key to solving hunger in Africa starts with improving the soil. An overview of agricultural subsidies and the debate over whether the best approach is through inorganic fertilizers or greener, cheaper (but more difficult) solutions like no-till farming: Fertilizer use in Africa is at the mercy of precarious politics. Although Rwanda’s fertilizer programme is […]

Researchers study a small group of patients who underwent surgery that split their brains: Through studies of this group, neuroscientists now know that the healthy brain can look like two markedly different machines, cabled together and exchanging a torrent of data. But when the primary cable is severed, information — a word, an object, a […]

In the 1940s, U.S. doctors led experiments that intentionally infected thousands of Guatemalans with venereal diseases. A closer look at how it happened, and who knew: John Cutler, the young investigator who led the Guatemalan experiments, had the full backing of US health officials, including the surgeon general. “Cutler thought that what he was doing […]