Environment

The Nature Photography Contest winners have been announced, and we can't imagine it was an easy task – the work by all finalists is incredible. We highlight some favorites from the many categories that include Birds, Funny Wildlife and Underwater.

Architecture is a bit of an underrated photo competition category but it is one that can simultaneously capture design, engineering and human experience. We pick our 2026 Sony World Photography Awards’ Professional finalist and shortlist standouts.

When it comes to systems for cleaning up marine oil spills, most of them simply float in place, waiting for the oil to come to them. A new robot, however, could proactively move through oil slicks – and it's inspired by both a dolphin and a sea urchin.

The Sony World Photography Awards received some 430,000 images across its four competitions. Here, judges have named the best in the Open contest – which focuses on the strength of a single image taken by people of all levels. We pick our top shots.

MIT researchers have found a way to use the mechanical vibrations of sound waves to shake water molecules free from a storage medium. The breakthrough significantly speeds up the process of harvesting drinking water from thin air.

In a world looking to reduce carbon emissions, there are growing calls to look back to trains. Not as a nostalgic nod to the past, but as a cornerstone of climate strategy. Rail isn’t only about efficiency, but also equity and reconnecting rural regions.

This year’s Bird Photographer of the Year competition attracted more than 33,000 entries from across the globe, which ultimately delivered a 2025 winners’ list that captures the beauty, drama and diversity of winged wildlife at its best.

Later this month, German water sports enthusiast and environmental activist Michael Walther will attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean on an SUP. If he succeeds, he will be only the second person to ever do so.

There are plenty of ways to suck water out of the air, whether you need a little or a lot. MIT researchers may have just hit upon one of the best ways to do it, with a new device that doesn't need power, or even a filter, to deliver drinking water.

If you're releasing a robot into the aquatic environment with no intention of retrieving it, that bot had better be biodegradable. Swiss scientists have gone a step better, with a li'l robot that can be consumed by fish when its job is done.

Researchers at Australia's RMIT University have devised a simple and clever contraption that could make drinking water available in disaster-stricken areas, by pulling it out of thin air.

Deep sea mining has been off limits because it's awfully hard, and because governments haven't yet firmed up regulations around extracting minerals offshore. That might soon change with The Metal Company's latest move – perhaps sooner than it should.