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More than half of Earth's 37 largest aquifers are being depleted, according to gravitational data from the GRACE satellite system.

More than half of the world's 37 biggest aquifers are running dry, putting at risk the freshwater supplies of hundreds of millions of people, according to a NASA analysis. "The water table is dropping all over the world," said NASA water scientist Jay Famiglietti. 

FedEx, Walmart, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and UPS - five of the country's biggest trucking fleets - could cut their fuel use by 500 million gallons a year under the new heavy duty truck fuel efficiency standard, saving $1.7 billion on fuel, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists study.

By slightly altering the quantities of materials used, scientists from MIT have uncovered a new method of concrete mixing that could reduce these emissions by more than half.

Armed with new high-tech equipment, mining companies are targeting vast areas of the deep ocean for mineral extraction. But with few regulations in place, critics fear such development could threaten seabed ecosystems that scientists say are only now being fully understood.

Warming ocean waters are bleaching the world's corals to an unprecedented degree and could destroy huge swaths of coral reefs in areas ranging from Australia to Africa. "This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," says Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia.

An international team of scientists has proposed a series of deadlines by which humanity must take serious action to combat climate change if it is to meet the ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and stave off potential disaster. The team behind the study hopes that these points of no return will help inform debate, and spur leaders to take action to mitigate the threat of climate change while there is still time.

Steve Davis is a climate energy scientist at the University of California Irvine. He and his colleagues wanted to see whether outsourcing manufacturing to China--which happens to be good for our wallets--is also good for the planet. Spoiler alert: doesn't look like it.

Scientists are still trying to unravel the damaging effects of ground-level ozone on life on earth. But as the world warms, their concerns about the impact of this highly toxic, pollution-caused gas are growing.

Warming ocean waters are bleaching the world's corals to an unprecedented degree and could destroy huge swaths of coral reefs in areas ranging from Australia to Africa. "This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," says Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Twenty-four out of 30 top companies in the packaged food, fast food and personal care industries have inadequate commitments or lack commitments altogether for sourcing sustainable palm oil for their products, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Unsustainable agricultural methods have caused the planet's soil to release up to 70% of its carbon into the atmosphere -- and scientists say that restoring soil conditions might help to reabsorb that carbon and slow climate change. "If we treat soil carbon as a renewable resource, we can change the dynamics," says carbon-cycle expert Thomas Goreau

The map shows the world's carbon emissions from 1997 to 2010, say the scientists who made it. The data came from satellite measurements and reported emissions rates from factories and power plants, among other sources.

The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful.  When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that's a recipe for more devastating floods.

On July 20th, James Hansen, the former NASA climatologist who brought climate change to the public's attention in the summer of 1988, issued a bombshell: He and a team of climate scientists had identified a newly important feedback mechanism off the coast of Antarctica that suggests mean sea levels could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted: 10 feet by 2065. The authors included this chilling warning: If emissions aren't cut, "We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea-level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization."

It may come as a surprise to learn that we are in the middle of the third great coral bleaching event in human history. And scientists are calling it the severest yet. The last great bleaching event was in 1998 when 11% of the world's coral reef coverage was lost. Some areas like the Maldives lost as much as 90% of their reefs. This event is worse, possibly much worse. 38% of the planet's reefs will be affected, with 12,000 sq km of reefs killed off entirely according to experts.

Extreme heat can kill, as it did by the dozens in Pakistan in May. But as many of South Asia's already-scorching cities get even hotter, scientists and economists are warning of a quieter, more far-reaching danger: Extreme heat is devastating the health and livelihoods of tens of millions more.

The world's oceans are rising in temperature faster than previously believed as they absorb most of the world's growing climate-changing emissions, scientists said Thursday.

Since 2014, oil companies reported that they used more than 20 million pounds and 2 million gallons of chemicals in their operations, including at least 16 chemicals the state of California classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants under the state's Proposition 65 law. That recycled wastewater was then sold to irrigation districts largely in Kern County. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has allowed the practice for at least four decades and only recently required the oil companies and water districts to disclose the details. EWG detailed its findings in a report released Wednesday, two days before a public meeting of an expert panel convened to study the practice's safety. Although scientists don't know whether using oil field wastewater to grow crops poses a health risk to people who eat the food, the water board has refused to halt the practice until the expert panel releases its findings.

The Science Based Targets initiative announced that 155 companies are now participating in its program to establish emissions goals in line with what scientists say is necessary to keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius threshold.

pilot project that sought to demonstrate that carbon dioxide emissions could be locked up by turning them into rock appears to be a success. Tests at the CarbFix project in Iceland indicate that most of the CO2 injected into basalt turned into carbonate minerals in less than two years, far shorter a time than the hundreds or thousands of years that scientists had once thought such a process would take. Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/iceland-carbon-capture-project-quickly-converts-carbon-dioxide-stone-180959365/#GpYzrDcLOjF1tUZx.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter