Ecology

The Obama administration has announced its five-year plan for new oil and gas drilling leases in the Outer Continental Shelf. In a reversal of previous proposals, the final plan does not include drilling rights in the Arctic.

Alaska Airlines used a renewable jet fuel with a 20-percent blend of forest residuals, such as tree branches, to power a flight from Seattle to Washington, DC,, marking the first commercial flight to do so.

While the Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on the planet, is in a dire state, it's not "dead" yet. However, a recent "obituary" for the Reef went viral, indicating the public appeal of global-warming-inspired doom porn.

The state of Colorado has proposed rules that would reduce the number of allowable pesticides used on marijuana from 200 to about 75. Those to be permitted are the least harmful and already allowed by federal regulators for use on food and tobacco crops.

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and an Eastern Kentucky oil company agreed this month to keep secret a settlement related to a lawsuit over the company's repeated contamination of the Kentucky River.

The San Francisco Bay contains more concentrations of plastic litter than the Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay, a new study finds. "Microbeads" from cosmetic products are among the million plastic particles per square kilometer in the South Bay.

A federal appeals court in the US has rejected a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to approve an insecticide harmful to honeybees without proper verification of the chemical's effects.

Bumblebees sickened by an intestinal parasite are apt to visit flowers containing nectar and pollen that have a medicinal effect, a new study reports, indicating the current decline in the bee population could be abated through beneficial plants.

Ninety percent of all individual seabirds alive today have eaten plastic of some sort, according to a new study – an 85 percent increase since 1960. Scientists believe 99 percent of seabird species will be impacted in the coming decades.