2020 has been a tough year. Starting with Australia’s devastating wildfires, followed up by the death of beloved basketball star Kobe Bryant and his young daughter Gigi, and then, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s not forget about the murder hornets, the locusts in east Africa, the wildfires in Siberia, and the arctic circle reaching...
Forests are a vitally important part of our environment. They stabilize the climate by removing excess carbon from the atmosphere, protect biodiversity by providing a home for countless animal and insect species, and support livelihoods [1]. One 2019 study found that the Earth’s ecosystems could support an additional 0.9 billion hectares of continuous forest, which...
Have you ever gotten a package in the mail or brought something home from the store that is closed up with zip ties? Zip ties can be a pain to remove, even if you have a pair of scissors on hand. If you don’t, getting them off becomes a near-impossible task. Thankfully, there’s a very...
The ocean is possibly the most mysterious place on our planet, and somehow manages to continuously surprise even the most veteran biological and environmental scientists. Its latest curveball? Walking sharks. Admittedly, these creatures are not a brand-new discovery, but a twelve-year-long study by Conservation International, the CSIRO, Florida Museum of Natural History, the Indonesian Institute...
Many of us dream of winning the lottery and becoming instant millionaires overnight. One man in Tanzania did almost exactly that. Not by winning the lottery, but by finding two of the largest pieces of Tanzanite in the world. From Miner to Millionaire Saniniu Laizer is a small-scale mining boss in Tanzania. Through his mining...
Scotland has now taken an important step toward combating homophobia and is the first country in the world to include LGBTQI history as a part of their school curriculum. For centuries, the LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex) community has faced discrimmination, violence, oppression, and persecution at the hands of the church, state,...
Dolls, trucks, Lego, and action figures are all classic children’s toys that have one thing in common: they’re all made of plastic. In fact, in 2017 the website ecobirdy.com conducted a survey which found that 90 percent of all children’s toys are made entirely out of plastic [1]. The Lure of Bright Toys These brightly-colored...
When it comes to fostering healthy relationships, drugs and alcohol are typically viewed very negatively- and rightly so. Addictions and substance abuse can destroy the bonds you have with friends, families, and spouses, and tear relationships apart. A more recent study, however, has been published that suggests that marijuana use may not deserve the bad...
In this day and age, it’s easy to think that we’ve seen everything nature could possibly have to offer- we’ve got blood moons, bioluminescent water, thundereggs, the Northern Lights, volcanic lightning– the list goes on and on. Despite this, nature still manages to surprise and amaze us, and continues to produce natural phenomena that baffle...
By the year 2050, the world’s population is expected to reach nearly ten billion. This means that in that time, global food production must increase by fifty percent [1]. Could small farms offer a potential solution? Large-scale agricultural production is often purported as the solution to feeding the world, however bringing more land under agricultural...
Imagine you’re in the middle of a massive, sprawling city- a concrete jungle, as they say. You step out onto the roof of a large building, and find not an empty, concrete rooftop as you might expect, but instead a sprawling greenspace filled with trees, bushes, and vines growing a variety of fruits and vegetables....
There’s no question that we all love our pets like they’re our children. Most pet-owners are aware, however, that our animals are not with us for a long time, so we have to enjoy them as much as we can while we have them. One couple has been lucky enough to enjoy their dog far...
