A new report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Interpol has highlighted the sophistication and growth of environmental crimes across the world. These crimes range from the illegal trade of wildlife, illegal mining, illegal forestry and fishing. And despite our growing global attention towards conservation, these crimes have jumped 26 percent in the past two…

What if we could not only clean up the heavy metals in our water systems, but also recycle those metals and reuse them?A new study from the Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia in Spain suggests that, soon, we might be doing just that.

Researchers in Scotland are attempting to come up with an easy, fast and reliable canine IQ test. This comes after an initial study showed that much like in humans, intelligence in dogs varies considerably. Similarly to human IQ tests, the canine IQ test used spatial patterns and problem solving to determine an underlying intelligence. To administer the test…

Microbes, primarily bacteria and fungi, get a bad rap in today’s society. However they’ve long played an incredible role within the Earth’s ecosystem. And one of the most important places microbes are transforming the earth is in the Gulf of Mexico, where a number of strains are busy munching up the oil still left over…

Humans and animals on the west coast should take care when near the water. One of the largest algae blooms of all time is producing dangerous toxins which now stretch from California to Alaska. The neurotoxin being released by the bloom is called domoic acid, and it can cause a series of problems for any…

Many of us have seen the photos of plastic refuse in the ocean, the large islands of bags and waste that collect at tidal crossroads. Yet when scientists took a survey of the ocean earlier this year, they found a suspicious amount had disappeared. Was it just our good luck that pollution was decreasing? Hardly. It…

The WHO has released a new study ranking countries with the worst air pollution. When we consider air pollution most of us will automatically think of China. However, it was nowhere to be found in the top 10 offenders. This, by the way, is not because they’ve suddenly cleaned up their act, but rather because…

In Italy, a man foraging for mushrooms was attacked when he happened upon a mother bear and her cubs. Part of a reintroduction and conservation program in Italy’s northern Dolomites, the bear, named Daniza, was ordered to be captured and possibly killed. This has sparked social media outrage, prompting those on twitter to hashtag #iostocondanzia…