What’s in a name? Knowledge, power, and history, Jens Benöhr, Constanza López, and Kara Lena Virik argue. The scientific names of plants root botanical knowledge in colonial relationships. To decolonize ecology, we must embrace the pluriverse of knowing, naming, and living with the world.
God, pet, and research subject, axolotls transgress Western dualisms. Alex Ventimilla explores what these creatures tell us about science, companionship, and life in the Anthropocene.
Erin Hassett speaks with Dr. Gemma Clucas, a researcher at Cornell University who analyzes the poop of penguins and other seabirds to reveal deteriorating ocean health and changing fish population ecology. Dr. Clucas and fellow researchers travel to remote locations to collect the poop from common terns, penguins, puffins, and other seabirds.
Katie Mummah reviews Vincent Ialenti’s book Deep Time Reckoning, which uses lessons from nuclear waste disposal to show how long-term thinking can help us and the planet.
From the scale of a landscape to the scale of a human body, Jamie Lorimer sees a “probiotic turn” underway that uses life to manage life.
In conversation with Clare Sullivan, Dr. Gail Carlson explains how toxic PFAS found in some in ski waxes contaminate the environment and why regulating them is difficult but crucial.
Artist and neuroscientist Christine Liu shares her zines, Nicotine and The Opium Poppy, that explore the links between plants, drugs, and the brain.
The acclaimed author and activist, who has edited the new Library of America edition of “Silent Spring,” reflects on how Carson changed her style of writing to become “defense attorney for the Earth.”
The Smithsonian’s fish collection preserves not just specimens but the labor and knowledge of immigrant fishermen on the California coast.
What if today’s climate activists acted more like the scientists who spoke out on the first Earth Day?
