Splitting Chinook salmon into two groups based on their DNA could aid conservation efforts. But some researchers argue that this would be a misuse of the data.
Today’s extinction rates are sky-high. But scientists debate if that’s sufficient evidence to conclude that Earth is undergoing a mass extinction event—or whether that’s even a helpful designation.
Scientists who work with foreign biological specimens face a patchwork of permits that threaten to block their projects, with potentially harmful consequences for the ecosystems they study.
Although highly controversial now, keeping orcas in captivity helped transform popular and scientific conceptions of the marine mammal from an unfeeling killer to a complex, intelligent animal.
The myriad species floating atop the world’s seas, called neuston, are mysterious and understudied, complicating efforts to clean up plastic pollution.