Environment

The president recommends more than 12 million acres of the region receive the highest level of protection available for public lands.

Aqua-Spark is the world's first investment fund for sustainable aquaculture. So far it has bet on an alternative fish feed that could take pressure off the oceans and a tilapia farm in Mozambique.

Gregory Asner has loaded a plane with lasers, spectrometers and computers to create models so detailed, they distinguish between and count plant species in even the densest biomes, like the Amazon.

In Los Angeles, some see drought as a design opportunity. The Arid Lands Institute in Burbank is developing ways to turn the city into a "sponge" in order to take in water and store it for later.

The solar industry employs nearly 174,000 workers in the U.S., up 22 percent from a year ago. But the industry's future is murky, as government subsidies are set to expire within two years.

John Cruden returns to the department as litigation over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill intensifies. He'll also defend Obama climate change rules and try to protect wildlife while in the post.

It's the brainstorm of a street artist, who wanted folks to pay more respect to the pickers who collect recyclable garbage that would otherwise pile up in landfills.

The annually-averaged temperature was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th century average, and easily broke the records set in 2005 and 2010.

The rules are mostly voluntary, which disappoints environmental groups, but they should ratchet down the amount of leaked methane from new or modified oil and gas operations, which contributes to climate change.

Many crops we eat today are the product of genetic modifications that happen in a lab, not in nature. Scientists and consumers are divided how cautious we need to be about these foods.

Lonesome George was the last of his subspecies of giant tortoise from the Galapagos. For decades scientists tried to find him a mate, but he died alone. NPR's Adam Cole offers this elegiac tribute.

And he drinks it. It's all thanks to the Janicki Omniprocessor, a new machine that can turn human waste into clean water.