James Dinneen

A species of social spiders eat their siblings as soon as they die but tolerate each other when they are alive, suggesting a mysterious signal helps them to determine when to dine on a nest mate

As the Aral Sea has been drained by irrigation and dried up, the mass loss on the surface has caused Earth’s upper mantle to rise up, lifting the emptied sea bed an average of 7 millimetres per year

Mercury pollution accumulating in trees could offer a new way to monitor destructive gold mining operations

Diamonds formed in Earth’s lower mantle contain tiny flecks of minerals that are helping us understand the inner workings of our planet

Proposed cuts would wipe out NOAA’s Ocean and Atmospheric Research office among a raft of other reductions to one of the main scientific agencies of the US

A decades-long stretch of extremely low precipitation in the 1500s may have spurred cultural changes among the Rapa Nui people that reduced time spent building statues, but not all archaeologists agree

The "skyglow" produced when light from cities bounces off clouds can help cyanobacteria and other aquatic microbes grow at night

Microbial communities feeding on geothermal methane seeps beneath the Antarctic ice sheet could resemble life-supporting environments on frozen worlds in our solar system and beyond

Extremely low sea ice levels in the Arctic and Antarctica signal a "new normal" that may accelerate global warming and disrupt ocean currents, on top of the consequences for people and wildlife that rely on the ice

Climate researchers argue their science has advanced enough to directly link emissions from particular companies to damages from specific extreme weather events