Plastic fibers are found in 83 percent of water samples from over a dozen countries around the world. Samples from the United States—including from EPA headquarters, the Capitol building, and Trump Tower—are the most highly contaminated, with 94 percent showing microplastic contamination. 

Nearly 400 employees have left the EPA since the end of August.

High concentrations of antidepressants are found in the brains of fish in the Great Lakes.

Irma, a Category 5 hurricane and one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded, bears down on Florida. The hurricane leaves 60 percent of the residents of the island of Barbuda homeless. There is already a hurricane watch for Jose, advancing in Irma’s wake.

At least 81 major fires are burning across the Western states. Since the 1980s, climate change has doubled the area in the West that has burned.

Representative Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), President Trump’s pick to be administrator of NASA, has no science background and is a climate-science denier.

Hawaii’s Supreme Court orders an end to the collection of reef fish for the commercial aquarium trade.

African wild dogs vote on whether or not to hunt by sneezing.

By shifting the earth’s magnetic field, solar storms may have led to mass beachings of sperm whales in countries around the North Sea.

Champaign County, Illinois, records its first armadillo.

Air pollution in India is so bad that it inhibits the production of solar energy. 

Warmer weather in the United States encourages more people to drive, increasing traffic deaths of cyclists and pedestrians.