In the heart of the western Pacific Ocean, surrounded by coral atolls and the lush tropical islands of Palau, lies a remarkable relic: the wreck of a seaplane from the Second World War. This plane is an Aichi E13A—a type of aircraft that Allied forces referred to by the code name “Jake.” Japanese troops relied on them for reconnaissance missions and...

Rebecca Cairns-Wicks looks up at the branches of a black cabbage tree. It’s growing at the edge of a grassy road along a sinuous ridge leading up the misty slopes of the cloud forest on Saint Helena Island. Umbels of small flowers, like bunched-up daisies, drape over the tree’s flat, leathery leaves, and a mat of ferns, lichens, mosses, and other organisms...

This story was originally published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Maggie Reddy was growing up on the eastern coast of South Africa in the 1990s, the tiny oceanside town where her family lived offered just two recreational options for children: the library and the...

At around 11:30 a.m. on March 6, 2024, Houthi militants from Yemen fired a ballistic missile at a Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier transiting the Gulf of Aden, a shipping route between the Arabian and Somali Peninsulas. A large fire broke out on the ship, and three people were killed. At least four others were injured. Since October 2023,...

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. An unprecedented US federal effort to rescue and rehabilitate endangered smalltooth sawfish is getting underway this week in the Florida Keys, where unusual and concerning behavior has been documented, including spinning...

The water in California’s San Francisco Bay could rise more than two meters by the year 2100. For the region’s tidal marshes and their inhabitants, such as the endangered Ridgway’s rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse, it’s a potential death sentence. Given enough time, space, and sediment, tidal marshes can build layers of mud and decaying vegetation...