Top Stories

Some Plants Make Their Own Pesticide — But at What Cost to the Atmosphere?

A natural alternative to pesticides may be hiding in a misunderstood plant compound — but it could come at an environmental cost.

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Amazon Trees Under Pressure: New Study Reveals How Forest Giants Handle Light and Heat

In a recent study published in New Phytologist, researchers at Michigan State University have uncovered how Amazon rainforest canopy trees manage the intense sunlight they absorb — revealing resilience to hot and dry conditions in the forest canopy while also offering a way to greatly improve the monitoring of canopy health under increasing extreme conditions.

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What’s Really in our Food? A Global Look at Food Composition Databases—and the Gaps We Need to Fix

To build healthier food systems, we need better food data. A new research shows where the gaps are—and how innovations like PTFI are helping to close them.

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Fossil Corals Point to Possibly Steeper Sea Level Rise Under a Warming World

Coastal planners take heed: Newly uncovered evidence from fossil corals found on an island chain in the Indian Ocean suggests that sea levels could rise even more steeply in our warming world than previously thought.

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Wet Soils Increase Flooding During Atmospheric River Storms

A new study examined decades of atmospheric river storms across the West Coast to pinpoint the conditions that lead to catastrophic flooding.

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A Third of Forests Lost This Century Will Likely Never Be Restored

Of the forest lost so far this century, roughly a third was destroyed to make room for farms, a new analysis finds. 

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Winter Arrives Early in Lesotho and South Africa

A powerful storm system brought wintry conditions to Lesotho and South Africa in early June 2025. 

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UT Arlington Researchers: Microplastics Are Infiltrating Our Drinking Water

Wastewater treatment plants are not effectively removing this tiny pollutant, study shows.

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New Study Shows Alligators Aren’t All That’s Lurking in Georgia’s Swamps

Gator research uncovers increased levels of mercury in the state’s swamps.

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Research Shows Rivers Release Ancient Carbon Dioxide Into the Atmosphere, Uncovering a Greater Role for Plants and Soil in the Carbon Cycle

A new study has revealed for the first time that ancient carbon, stored in landscapes for thousands of years or more, can find its way back to the atmosphere as CO₂ released from the surfaces of rivers.

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