For just a few years, there have been tales of the deforestation of Africa. And they also’re true — the continent’s forests are disappearing, misplaced primarily to rising agriculture, logging,…
During the apartheid era, the Sokhulu people were forcibly removed from their coastal lands and forbidden — under threat of arrest and imprisonment — to harvest the rich marine resources…
In Minnesota, there’s a research farm peppered with wind turbines that, when in full swing, boasts an astonishingly low carbon footprint. The wind powers a chemical plant that makes ammonia,…
On a hot and humid August day near Geneva, New York, Garrett Boudinot stands in a field of hemp, the green stalks towering a foot or more over his 6-foot,…
Off the coast of the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, an underwater metropolis bustles. Sea turtles glide lazily through the surf while schools of fluorescent yellow butterflyfish weave between basketball-size sea…
Tom Jeffries and Tom Kelleher met at Rutgers University in the 1970s while studying industrially useful microbes. Jeffries went on to run a yeast genomics program at the U.S. Department…
Among the many ailments plaguing Southeast Asia’s Mekong River, “hungry water” stands out with particular clarity. In recent dry seasons, the Mekong has in places turned a pristine blue as…
In the 1930s, the DuPont company created the world’s first nylon, a synthetic polymer made from petroleum. The product first appeared in bristles for toothbrushes, but eventually it would be…
The European Union recognizes it has a meat problem. The bloc has no easy way to curb the climate impact of its livestock, which eat soybeans grown on deforested lands…
Drive through rural Minnesota in high summer and you’ll take in a view that dominates nearly the entire U.S. Midwest: an emerald sea of ripening corn and soybeans. But on…
