Environmental Science

Urine is so much more valuable than we think. Soon, we might be building houses with pee bricks.

By Jesslyn Shields

Palm oil has become one of the most widely used substances on the planet, but its cultivation has been an environmental and human rights disaster.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) is a controversial possibility in the effort to slow the rate of climate change.

By Patrick J. Kiger

But that doesn't mean they worshipped them.

By Dave Roos

Seed banks like the Svalbard Vault in Norway are saving seeds for our future. But a new study found not all seeds can be banked.

By Oisin Curran

A bubbling mud pool is moving toward the San Andreas Fault, but scientists don't see evidence of an impending earthquake.

By Stell Simonton

We flush a shocking amount of perfectly good water down the toilet every day. An environmental engineer has a better idea.

By Oisin Curran

A killer smog 70 years ago helped lead to the first federal air pollution laws.

By Patrick J. Kiger

As if warming temperatures and melting glaciers aren't bad enough, now climate scientists are warning that the world's beer supply could all but dry up. Even at Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest.

By John Perritano

The super-cool phenomenon of tidal bores happens in only a few places on the globe, and it takes a very specific set of conditions to occur.

By Mark Mancini

While green roofs make sense in a lot of ways, requiring their installation isn't as simple as it might seem.

By Patrick J. Kiger

The oceans' levels change daily across the globe. We know them as tidal changes. But what causes this constant shift in sea level and why is it more dramatic is some places than others?

By Mark Mancini

Around 90 percent of an iceberg is under the water, but changing weight distribution caused by melting can make it flip.

By Stell Simonton

After 2035 it will be extremely unlikely we can stop Earth's temperature from rising enough to kick off a dangerous medley of global disasters.

By Laurie L. Dove

Properly disposing and storing coal ash is extremely tricky, and it only takes one small trigger to cause a catastrophe.

By John Donovan

We've relied on synthetic chemical pesticides for far too long — and they haven't been doing us any favors.

By Jesslyn Shields

A young inventor is launching a device aimed at cleaning up some of the debris in the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch. But many conservationists are not impressed. Here's why.

By Dave Roos

All that seashell collecting you've been doing actually hurts the environment.

By Mark Mancini

Some of the cremated remains buried at Stonehenge came from a spot in Wales that's more than 100 miles away. How did that happen?

By Jesslyn Shields

Harmful algal blooms wreak havoc in oceans around the world and occur nearly every summer along the coastline of Florida.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Sweden puts less than 1 percent of its household trash into landfills, in part because it burns nearly half to generate heat and electricity.

By Patrick J. Kiger

When the weather becomes extreme, women in the west African country of Benin deal with agricultural challenges differently than men.

By Jesslyn Shields

Twitter was abuzz with reports that pretty green gems were spewing out of the Kiluaea volcano in Hawaii. But the experts took the shine off these speculations.

By Nathan Chandler

June 21 marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Here are five cool facts about it.

By Mark Mancini

And it turns out their strange discovery has a straightforward explanation: copper.

By Christopher Hassiotis