Environment

The North Atlantic has a new title as the global hotspot for hurricane clusters, with the likelihood of multi-storm events forming here increasing tenfold in 46 years. It's the first clear picture of how Earth's warming has shifted cluster patterns.

Researchers in Germany found fossilized dinosaur teeth can reveal what the air was like in prehistoric times. Humans might have found it hard to breathe if we were around back then, because CO2 levels were four times as high as the preindustrial era.

Ever wonder what happens to those old Teflon-coated frying pans? Not a lot. Most get chucked into landfills. However, a new recycling technique developed by Japan's National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) promises 100% effectiveness.

A lightning bolt stretching 515 miles from eastern Texas to near Kansas City has set a frightening new record as the longest single flash ever recorded. There are only two places on the entire planet where this kind of "megaflash" is likely to occur.

Research out of France has revealed that we're probably harming our lungs without knowing it. Every day, we're inhaling tiny bits of plastic smaller than a speck of dust without even leaving the house – that's 100x more than previously estimated.

While we're used to seeing cigarette butts littering public roads, such butts may soon be making their way into those roads, strengthening them in the process. It's all part of a recycling effort, which should also reduce the need for road repairs.

Methane is awful for the atmosphere. It's a major byproduct of many industrial processes, and we now know it also comes from a surprising and seemingly innocuous source – ships passing through shallow waters.

Scientists have discovered 230 new giant viruses (girus) found to be the unseen engineers of marine ecology, impacting global carbon cycling and energy flow across the world’s oceans.

For centuries, glaciers have sat like frosty crowns atop slumbering volcanoes, keeping Earth’s fury tucked safely beneath layers of ice. But now, as climate change accelerates and glaciers retreat, the lid may be lifting, and the heat rising.

There have been some wildly ambitious schemes to knock the power out of hurricanes over the years. Now, scientists believe they have come up with a way to successfully subdue these destructive storms, long before they have a chance to reach land.

The oceans are losing their light – and with it, possibly their life. A new study reveals more than 20% of the Earth's ocean, an area larger than Asia, has darkened over the last two decades.

No Soviet records, no logs or official drilling reports – just a 100-foot (30-m) deep, 226-foot (69-m) wide pit of relentless fire that’s burned for 50-plus years in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert called the Door to Hell.

One of the worries about microplastic pollution is the possibility that the particles may accumulate harmful bacteria in the environment, then pass them on to us. Well, that capability could soon put the particles to work as sewage monitors.

If you're hoping that reef-restoring coral larvae will settle down in damaged reefs, you can't just sit around and wait for it to happen. You have to get out there and entice the larvae, which is exactly what a new algae-based gel is designed to do.

Nobody likes buildings that are too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. That's where the FlectoLine facade comes in, as it uses two bio-inspired mechanisms to regulate how much solar thermal energy gets through a building's windows.