Food & Environment

Conceptual illustration shows a person vaulting over a book and calendar away from bad habits and poor willpower, as depicted by unhealthy food and money and scrunched-up paper.

Time for half-year resolutions?

If your good intentions from a few months ago haven’t led to much, take note. A psychologist tells us what we can learn from studies on willpower.

Large platters hold monkey meat that has been cooked. Several women stand behind the platters.

Food & Environment

In defense of wild meat’s place at the table

Sustainable and safe consumption of wildlife is possible, and important for those who depend on it, says a conservation researcher

Colorized scanning electron microscope image of excrement shows a pale green piece of plant fiber covered by tiny microbes colored teal, purple, red, green, brown and more.

The Mind

The growing link between microbes, mood and mental health

New research suggests that to maintain a healthy brain, we should tend our gut microbiome. The best way to do that right now is not through pills and supplements, but better food.

Aerial photograph showing piles of logs in a clearing in a forest.

Food & Environment

Does it work to pay people not to cut the forest?

Evidence that the approach helps to save trees, preserve ecosystems and reduce carbon emissions is often hard to come by. But it can succeed if it’s done right, says an economist.

Five yellow-and-black-striped insects with long antennae are walking over a piece of very battered-looking leaf.

Food & Environment

Natural pest control: Plants enlist their enemies’ enemies

These stealthy survival tactics could teach us how to curb the widespread use of chemical pesticides in agriculture. But first, researchers must learn how seemingly helpless flora deploy this masterful strategy.

Artist's illustration depicts a variety of protein sources such as fish, vegetables, meat, eggs and dairy. A person is sitting among them all.

Food & Environment

Like hungry locusts, humans can easily be tricked into overeating

Our bodies crave more food if we haven’t had enough protein, and this can lead to a vicious cycle — especially if we’re reaching for ultraprocessed instead of high-fiber whole foods

Photograph of a butterfly perched on a plant. Its wings are spread wide, showing off a checkered pattern in white, black and orange.

Living World

Edith’s checkerspot butterfly: Checkered past, uncertain future

How do animal populations respond to climate change? After studying the same butterfly and its habitats for decades, two biologists explain that it’s complicated — but endlessly intriguing.

Photograph of a fire with silhouettes of trees and a kangaroo that is hopping to escape the inferno.

Physical World

Fighting fire with fire ... and fauna

Climate change is aggravating the seasonal burns that Australia has always known. They won’t be snuffed out, but new ecological strategies may help.

Photograph of the deck of a large commercial fishing vessel. Fish are falling from a massive net and piling on the deck floor, as fishermen look on.

Food & Environment

The human hand in fish evolution

Fishery practices that go for the big ones may be counterproductive when mostly the small survive

Close-up photograph of a pure California tiger salamander (right) and a hybrid between the California species and the non-native barred tiger salamander (left). Though the two are clearly different in this photograph, they are not always as easy to tell apart.

Living World

A salamander’s dangerous liaisons

The giant genomes of these struggling amphibians tell a story of outsider invasions, assault by disease and cross-species sex. A geneticist explains.

A satellite image shows how a decades-old fence erected between Finland and Norway affected Arctic vegetation by altering the movement of reindeer herds.

Food & Environment

Effects of a fence

A satellite image reveals how humans and their herds are changing the Arctic from the ground up

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Food & Environment

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