Nearly a century after being extirpated, blue whales are moving back to South Georgia Island
Now that whaling has been outlawed for decades, populations are beginning to heal—but they face new threats.
Jan 2021 6
Cara Giaimo
Cara Giaimo is a freelance writer and researcher. She spent three years as a staff writer at Atlas Obscura, and now writes for the New York Times, Grist, Technology Review, and elsewhere.
Dec 2020 23
Study ties amphibian collapses with increased malaria outbreaks
If you remove frogs and other "mosquito-reducers" from the landscape, what happens to malaria rates?
Dec 2020 16
Using satellite imagery, researchers have built an automatic habitat loss detector
They then trained image change detection algorithms on “before and after” images of places that have recently been cleared, built on, or even covered in solar panels.
Dec 2020 9
Don’t chalk the moss!
The same boulders that entice climbers also tend to house unique plants — try not to sprinkle them.
Dec 2020 2
Clean air policies are for the birds
According to a new estimate, reducing ozone pollution has saved 1.5 billion birds over the past 40 years.
Nov 2020 25
Q. Are vertebrate populations declining? A. Depends on how you look at the data
A new analysis complicates a popular metric of biodiversity decline.
Nov 2020 18
Can blimps help save sharks?
Sharks attack very few people—but current mitigation efforts kill a lot of sharks. Is blimp-based surveillance a better option?
Nov 2020 11
Focus on freshwater conservation, and land gets swept along for the ride
Prioritizing terrestrial species leaves freshwater ones behind — but the opposite isn't true.
Nov 2020 4
There is still something to be said for human silence
Researchers experiment with increasing the acoustic carrying capacity of a park
Oct 2020 28
Swiss study shows that paying people to conserve biodiversity pays off
The government reimburses farmers for conserving country’s tremendous plant diversity.
