A single injection of an experimental gene therapy treatment may be all that is required to permanently stop a female cat from reproducing, according to a small, proof-of-concept study. Of the more than 600 million-some domestic felines that wander our planet, an astounding 80 percent are believed to be strays, void of owners or homes.

A lone polar bear, marooned on a shrinking slab of sea ice, has become a heart-wrenching poster child for the effects of climate change in the Arctic. New climate models from an international team of researchers predict that in as few as 10 years, that iconic creature could have nowhere left to stand in the

Bringing your garden indoors and growing the right plants on your office wall (along with some sophisticated tech) could scrub the air of several common toxic pollutants, new research suggests. The findings come from scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia, who investigated whether a vertical wall system fitted with indoor plants

The colorful chaos of a wildflower meadow is a much ‘greener’ alternative to a perfectly manicured patch of grass, a team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge says. Cultivating a lawn is a highly popular, centuries-old tradition in much of the Western world. Yet as great as these uniform blankets of green are

In spite of advances in making laboratory-cultured meat products taste like the real deal, we’re yet to see a single factory pumping chicken nuggets out of a vat. That might not be such a bad thing, according to a recent study by researchers from the University of California, Davis (UCD), and the University of California,

Humanity’s consumption comes at a cost to a wide variety of planetary systems that depend on one another for sustainability. Like dominoes, instability in one leans heavily on others in line, creating a set of boundaries that can cause serious problems if breached. Past studies have warned our appetites have stressed at least a few

Fungi pose a significant threat to crops worldwide, scientists warn in a new commentary, with increasingly “devastating” effects on our food supply. We tend to worry more about pathogens that sicken humans directly, especially viruses and bacteria. But while corn smut and stem rust might not scare us like Ebola or E. coli, maybe they

Diplomats from 175 countries gathering in Paris for plastics treaty talks on Monday may want to pack an umbrella, but not just because there’s a chance of rain. France’s capital will also be showered during the five-day talks by billions of microplastic particles falling from the sky, according to the first-ever plastics pollution weather forecast.

A decades-old global environmental pact has averted huge amounts of sea ice loss in the Arctic, new research shows. Banning ozone-depleting gases under the historic 1987 Montreal Protocol has delayed the first, feared ice-free Arctic summer by as much as 15 years, the study found – once again demonstrating that global treaties can work to

Current policies to limit global warming will expose more than a fifth of humanity to extreme and potentially life-threatening heat by century’s end, researchers warned Monday. Earth’s surface temperature is on track to rise 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2100, pushing more than two billion people – 22 percent of

France is preparing for temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels in the country by century’s end as the world falls short in meeting climate change targets, a cabinet minister warned Sunday. Christophe Bechu, minister for ecological transition, told the weekly JDD paper that his government was no longer banking on

Mounting evidence suggests humans are now a major driving force of evolution on Earth. From selective breeding to environmental modifications, we’re altering so much of our world that we’re not only now driving the climate, but the direction of life itself. In a massive project involving 287 scientists across 160 cities in 26 countries, researchers

Signed in 1987, the Montreal Protocol agreement led to a significant decrease in chemicals and pollutants known to damage Earth’s precious ozone layer. While their absence has allowed the protective gas to replenish high in the atmosphere, one damaging substance seems to have slipped through the cracks, potentially slowing the layer’s repair or even putting

One year in the next five will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a two-in-three chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5 °C global warming threshold, an alarming new report by the World Meteorological Organization predicts. The report, known as the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, warns if humanity

A closer look at the junction where a Greenland glacier crunches into the ocean floor, known as its grounding line, has revealed less stability amid the shifting of tides – and therefore a greater rate of melting – than previously estimated thanks to global warming. The finding explains why rates of glacier melts are well

Our planet is teetering on the edge of several tipping points that once passed, will topple into a cascade of ecological changes. Extreme heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms are becoming more common and intense; the energy trapped by Earth’s atmosphere and oceans fizzing up like a carbonated soft drink under pressure. Now a new study

The Amazon rainforest is on the precipice of a catastrophic collapse from which it may never return. The traditional knowledge that once helped cultivate this precious ecosystem could now help it recover, according to new research by researchers from the University of São Paulo, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, and the National Institute for Amazonian

Vietnam has reported a record-high temperature, with climate experts warning such extreme weather events would continue. The country’s scientists have warned that global warming is exacerbating adverse weather, with the region sweltering under a heatwave in April – when neighboring countries also registered record temperatures. A temperature of 44.1 degrees Celsius (111.38 degrees Fahrenheit) was

The United Nations warned Wednesday of a growing likelihood the weather phenomenon El Niño will develop in coming months, fueling higher global temperatures and possibly new heat records. The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said it now estimated there was a 60 percent chance that El Niño would develop by the end of July, and an

Since the 18th century, humans have been taking fossil fuels out of their safe storage deep underground and burning them to generate electricity or power machinery. We’ve now converted coal, oil, and gas into more than two trillion metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and added them to the atmosphere. The

Scientists are alarmed as sea surface temperatures stubbornly maintain record-breaking highs for more than a month, pushing the state of Earth’s oceans into uncharted territory. Starting in mid-March, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) leaps dramatically from earlier recordings, following lows of both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice this year. Dark

Global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, and that means more extreme heat waves more of the time. To better prepare for what lies ahead, researchers from across the UK have identified the countries most at risk from heat wave harm. This isn’t just countries where heat waves are expected to be likely. The

I was part of a team that recently discovered human-made pollutants in one of the deepest and most remote places on Earth – the Atacama Trench, which goes down to a depth of 8,000 meters (26,246 feet) in the Pacific Ocean. The presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in such a remote location emphasizes a crucial

If you think your morning commute is a logjam, you should see the Mackenzie River Delta in Nunavut, Canada. Unlike logjams of idling trucks, sedans, and SUVs, this literal logjam stores carbon. Covering some 51 square kilometers (nearly 20 square miles) it’s the largest-known cumulative logjam on Earth, consisting of fallen trees that have floated

Slowly and unsurely, humanity is weaning itself off coal. That’s good because coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and a major driver of human-induced climate change. But it’s not good enough. According to a new study, humans are quitting coal too slowly to meet targets set under the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on

Ambitious targets intended to slam the brakes on our current mass extinction may already be slipping out of reach barely a year after they were established, new research suggests. Data on birds and mammals reveal there’s a huge time lag between environmental change and its impact on animal populations, of up to 45 years depending

Researchers have just calculated the value society gets from a common but hidden underwater resource, and found it’s way higher than we ever expected. Kelp forests have long done so much for humanity, all the while operating out of sight beneath the waves. Hugging a third of our coastlines, they provide food and homes for

Almost a third of the world’s plastic waste is polypropylene, a hardy plastic used to make bottle caps and food containers that can take hundreds of years to degrade. But now, scientists have harnessed two strains of fungi found in soils to break down lab samples of polypropylene in just 140 days. The two fungi,

Coastal critters thought to be strangers to the open ocean have been found amongst the seething mass of plastic waste that is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “The issues of plastic go beyond just ingestion and entanglement,” Linsey Haram, a marine ecologist formerly at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, explained when in the process of

Home runs are exhilarating – those lofting moments when everyone looks skyward, baseball players and fans alike, anxiously awaiting the outcome: run or out, win or loss, elation or despair. Over the past several Major League Baseball seasons, home run numbers have climbed dramatically, including Aaron Judge’s record-breaking 62 homers for the New York Yankees