New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.
DNA is all around us — even in the air we breathe. Now scientists have found that air quality monitoring stations — which pull in air to test for pollution — also pick up lots of DNA that can reveal what plants and animals have been in the area.
Scientists are studying dogs around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to see whether anything in their genes helped their families survive the harshest, most degraded environments.
From South Dakota and Oklahoma to Alaska and Alberta, Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada are leading efforts to restore bison across North America.
Our Medieval ancestors left us with a biological legacy: Genes that may have helped them survive the Black Death make us more susceptible to certain diseases today.
Earth desperately needs people to stop burning coal, the biggest single source of greenhouse gases, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. But it is the world’s biggest source of fuel for electric power and so many depend on it for their very lives.
A hefty set of tusks is usually an advantage for elephants, allowing them to dig for water, strip bark for food and joust with other elephants. But during episodes of intense ivory poaching, those big incisors become a liability.