Environmental & Planetary
50 articles
Metagenomic hunts expose a global reservoir of plastic‑degrading enzymes
Large-scale environmental DNA surveys are revealing hundreds of enzyme candidates that break down plastics — promising leads, not instant solutions.
Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic Returns to the Center of Conservation Debate
As restoration targets, biodiversity credits and Indigenous stewardship reshape policy, Leopold’s simple moral turn—respect for the land as community—frames urgent choices about how to govern Earth’s living systems.
How invisible engineers — bacteria — run the nitrogen economy of Earth
Tiny microbes convert inert N2 into life’s raw material, drive greenhouse-gas fluxes and shape planet-scale biogeochemistry — and recent genomics is rewriting which bacteria do what.
Ancient Megafloods: New Geological Evidence from Sediments and Scours
High-resolution sedimentology and dating tie giant current ripples, slackwater deposits and scoured bedrock to episodic glacial outburst floods — powerful regional events with major landscape and climate consequences, not a single global deluge.
New Quantitative Limits on Volcanic Aerosol Cooling and What They Mean for Solar-Climate Interventions
High-resolution observations and models refine how sulfate aerosol plumes from volcanoes alter radiative forcing — and why they are a poor analogue for geoengineering.
Seismic Signals Point to Systemic Weakening in Major Subduction Zones
New dense-seismic and geodetic data reveal widespread physical and hydrological changes in slabs and mantle wedges that reduce mechanical coupling without enabling short-term earthquake prediction.
Accelerating Global Soil Carbon Loss Forces Rethink of Climate Models
Recent analyses reveal soil carbon is being mobilized faster than assumed—driven by microbial respiration, land‑use change, and shortened turnover times—challenging the idea of soils as a reliably stable carbon sink.
When Fire Tilts the Scales: How Volcanoes Trigger Rapid Climate Transitions
Explosive and flood volcanism can do more than nudge temperature — by combining fast aerosols, slow greenhouse injections, and vulnerable Earth-system feedbacks, they can flip climate states abruptly.
What Limits Life in the Hidden Oceans of the Outer Solar System?
New models and mission plans sharpen the picture: subsurface seas may be common, but habitability is ruled by subtle energy and chemistry constraints.
Rewilding Predators: When Trophic Cascades Come Back to Life
Recent reintroductions and sharper science show predators can reset entire ecosystems — but outcomes are context-dependent and contested.
The Living Shield: Coral Microbiomes, Thermal Resilience, and the Science of Assisted Evolution
Beneath the bleached surface of dying reefs lies a microbial universe that scientists are learning to manipulate — and it may be coral's last best hope against a warming ocean.
Air-Cleaning at Scale: The Energy Reality and Limits of Direct Air Capture
Direct air capture promises atmospheric CO2 removal, but energy and infrastructure needs turn ambition into a hard physical and political problem.