Rebecca Kessler

An area of salt marsh twice the size of Singapore has disappeared since the turn of the century, NASA scientists determined by analyzing satellite images from around the globe. Severe storms were partially responsible for the loss, which resulted in “significant” carbon emissions, according to a rec…

A stone causeway connects an islet, the famed Aragonese Castle perched atop it, to the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples in southern Italy. Below water, along the islet’s northern and southern contours, CO2 bubbles from volcanic rocks. Across these effervescent strips of seabed, pH ranges from an extreme low of 6.6 to […]

1. Negotiations for historic global plastics treaty break ground Global leaders cheered to the strike of a recycled-plastic gavel in March, signifying a landmark decision by the United Nations Environment Assembly to create the first-ever legally binding international treaty to curb plastic pollution. With 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic having been produced to date, […]

HONG KONG — Thousands of grayish, oval-shaped oysters pepper the mudflats of far northern Hong Kong, clustering together on fragments of rock lining the shoreline or clamping onto abandoned concrete posts. Despite being stuck in between a proverbial rock and a hard place — the bustling megalopolis of Hong Kong sprawling behind and the spiky […]

Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a steady food source. One species in the Caribbean even herds tiny mysid shrimp around their underwater “gardens,” which the shrimp dose with their fecal fertilizer. […]

PUERTO NATALES/PUNTA ARENAS, Chile — Pristine waters, partially covered in sea ice, reflect the early morning light while a flock of flamingos basks in the warmth of the sun near the coast. A few meters away, on the mainland, stands a huge white shed with a red roof: a factory for processing salmon, completed just […]

BANGKOK – A few dawns into 2022, authorities raided a shophouse in the heart of Thailand’s capital city. Officers from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division of the Royal Thai Police and the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources discovered the shop was breeding coral and selling it on Facebook for as little as $4 […]

Scientists remember the years between 2014 and 2017 as a particularly bad time for coral reefs. Elevated temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern harmed about three-quarters of the world’s reefs in both hemispheres, forcing corals to release their life-sustaining zooxanthellae and turning them ghostly white in a process known as coral bleaching. About […]

Canned tuna is trending in the U.S. again: after a tail-off in its consumption in the three decades through 2016, the cheap and shelf-stable protein’s popularity surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, last year, it got a major boost from young foodie influencers on TikTok: apparently, tuna-based date nights have become a thing, with the […]

A landmark agreement for a legally binding treaty aimed at protecting biodiversity and ensuring the sustainable use of resources in international waters has at last been reached by U.N. member states. The deal, more than 15 years in the making, was finalized on the evening of March 4 at U.N. headquarters in New York. Talks […]