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Ecosystem Dynamics
Once land plants, seagrasses staged one of evolution’s boldest reversals — returning to the ocean and reinventing their biology to thrive beneath the waves.
About six million years ago, the Mediterranean was sealed off from the Atlantic, and over centuries it ran dry. One megaflood reversed that.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
1hr 11mins
“It's a remarkable series of events that were required for us to be here, and that so many things could have happened in a different way that we wouldn't be here at all, both individually, and as a species.”
1hr 17mins
"It's not that I don't think these problems are big or that they're urgent, but I can start to see that these problems are solvable."
Dubbed "Valeriana" by researchers, the city of 50,000 peaked around 800 AD before being swallowed by the jungle.
Think twice before stepping on that crunchy top layer of soil.
The laws of physics aren't changing. But the Earth's conditions are different than what they used to be, and so are hurricanes as a result.
The salinity of the oceans is not just a matter of taste. Saltier water behaves differently, too.
2mins
“We wouldn’t be able to talk about minerals if it weren’t for the minerals themselves.” Mineralogist Bob Hazen explains how Earth’s rocks can teach us about our planet’s technicolor history.
New tests to detect species being traded, as well as population studies, aim to help save them.
Thanks to the Coriolis force, hurricanes never cross the equator.
Ancient currents seemed to move in concert with a 2.4 million-year dance between the Red Planet and Earth.
Food transport accounted for only 6% of emissions, but the production of dairy, meat, and eggs accounted for 83%
Across the subterranean United States, not all rocks were created equally.
In a recent paper, biologists outlined a three-part hypothesis for how all life as we know it began.
13.8 columnist Marcelo Gleiser reflects on his recent voyage to Earth's last wild continent.
Fire was crucial to the evolution of human technology. That's why alien species stuck in the "oxygen bottleneck" may be forever primitive.
ÄIO’s fermentation process creates healthy, sustainable oils and fats by upcycling low-value industry organics.
Looking back on our planet's early history offers a new (and less crazy) meaning for the idea of a "flat Earth."
The potential benefits of returning the thylacine to Australia make the project worth the effort.
Carnivorous plants fascinate as much now as when their gruesome diet was first discovered.
Seventy-five years after the anomaly's discovery, scientists have finally figured out why sea levels are so much lower here.
AI is helping us replace petrochemicals with natural enzymes.
Fossil Cycad National Monument held America’s richest deposit of petrified cycadeoid plants, until it didn’t.
Embark on a journey through one of the most profound ecological transitions in the history of complex life.
An un-crewed sailing drone discovered the unusually shaped, slumbering seamount.