For years, scientists have been inspired by nature to innovate solutions to tricky problems, even oil spills — manmade disasters with devastating environmental and economic consequences. A new USC study takes a cue from leaf structure to fabricate material that can separate oil and water, which could lead to safer and more efficient oil spill clean-up methods.

As many as 153 million premature deaths linked to air pollution could be avoided worldwide this century if governments speed up their timetable for reducing fossil fuel emissions, a new Duke University-led study finds.

Scientists calculate ‘speed limit’ for pumping pollutant to hungry algae, bacteria.

Millions of Chinese farmers have cut fertilizer use, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and increased crop yields after adopting new region-specific management practices, according to a 10-year study published recently in the journal Nature. 

Over the past decades, Beijing, the capital city of China, has encountered increasingly frequent persistent haze events (PHEs). Severe PHEs not only lead to a sharp decrease in visibility, causing traffic hazards and disruptions, and, hence, affecting economic activities, but also induce serious health problems such as respiratory illnesses and heart disease. While the increased pollutant emissions serve as the most important reason, changes in regional atmospheric circulation associated with large-scale climate warming are found to play a role as well.

Everyone's Saying It: The future of driving is electric. The big-name car companies have plans to start giving Tesla some tough competition. Jaguar’s I-Pace electric SUV will be on sale soon, and Porsche is teasing a new concept Mission E Cross Turismo, which looks like an SUV’d Panamera (in a good way). And normal cars for regular people are going the same way. Combined, Ford and GM plan to offer 34 full electric models in the next five years.

More than a decade after beekeepers first raised the alarm about a dangerously low global bee population, much progress has been made in understanding the mystery of colony collapse.

The eastern Mediterranean — an area that covers Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and southern Turkey — is experiencing monumental climate changes poised to significantly affect regional ecosystems and human health. According to a new Tel Aviv University study, these changes will alter the duration of summer and winter in the region by the end of this century.

Species living in coastal regions could face a significant future threat from reduced levels of oxygen in the marine environment, according to research published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Researchers from The University of Manchester are calling for tighter regulations on waste flowing into urban waterways, after the first study of its kind found that microplastics from urban river channels are a major contributor to the pollution problem in the oceans.