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The taxonomic classification of whales continues to evolve as marine biologists glean new insights from investigations of the largest of all animals on Earth. Two recent whale discoveries—one concerning a new species, and the other dealing with…

Driven by global warming, sea level is rising. The extent of sea-level rise depends on how fast glaciers and ice sheets melt. According to the U.S. Interagency Sea Level Rise Taskforce, by the year 2100, global sea level will likely increase by at…

The Paris Agreement is a treaty signed by 196 member nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an effort to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, primarily of carbon dioxide and methane, thereby limiting the…

Peatlands, also known as bogs and fens, are a type of wetland in which, over the course of hundreds to thousands of years, vegetation—mosses, sedges, trees, and other plants—have accumulated as partially decomposed organic matter. Peat itself covers…

Forest fires are becoming more problematic across the globe. For example, climate change has extended fire season in the United States by about 80 days since 1970 because of extreme weather events, such as prolonged drought, according to the U.S.…

The field of vaccination has been enhanced significantly by the successful development of two approved vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technologies. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that spread from China in 2019 to the rest of the world in…

The fossil record of sharks (members of the subclass Elasmobranchii within the class Chondrichthyes, or cartilaginous fishes) dates back more than 420 million years. Over the course of this time, sharks have been among the top predators found in the…

After a 203-day journey covering 472 million kilometers (293 million miles), NASA's Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. Perseverance is the largest and most sophisticated machine to ever land on another world.…

On April 7, 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a genetic variant of SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—that was initially identified in the United Kingdom is the dominant form of the virus…

Scrap tires are a common waste material, although markets do exist. According to the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, of the roughly 270 million scrap rubber tires generated each year in this country, about 100 million tires are used as fuel;…