Behold the spiny water flea: a single black eye, a barbed tail, and it reproduces asexually. Small fish, like young walleyes and yellow perch, can't eat it because of the spiny tail. Then to add insult to injury, it turns around and eats the very things those same young fish eat - and out-competes them - leading to slower-growing bigger fish. Plus it's decimating populations of the zooplankton that help keep algae in check and lake systems in balance. In a recent interview, with Dr. Donn

Climate Generation - and apparently a lot of Minnesotans - want the state legislature to be able to hit the ground running when they reconvene January 5.

Winona LaDuke is angry, and she's not pulling any punches. Enbridge is prepared to begin construction on the controversial Line 3 project next Tuesday, and LaDuke, a longtime environmental activist and the executive director of Honor the Earth, is fed up. "This is a disaster for the environment, civil rights and the government," she says. "The least the governor could do is issue a stay. "We would like the dogs called off. Enbridge wants to push this through before the pandemic is over and in

When studies started showing that fishers (think big weasel) were declining in northern Minnesota, the DNR and wildlife biologists got concerned. Michael Joyce, wildlife biologist with the NRRI got a team together, built 100 den boxes out of wood, strapped the 52-lb. boxes to frame packs and schlepped them out into the wilderness in hopes that with safe places to raise their families, fisher populations could start making a comeback. Thanks to the miracle of trail cams, Mike and his team can

Kate Young is a huge fan of native plants. And people. And turning people into native plants - or native plants into people - through her art.

UMD's Jennifer Kreps Frisch is pretty excited about teaching teachers how to get their students outside. And that was before she knew it was due to hit 70°F today. You would think teachers - college professors or those who hope to become teachers when they graduate - would be the last people to have anything good to say about the effects of the pandemic on their profession, but Frisch says this is a chance to allow teachers to do what they do best: think on their feet and build on the

If you mention "natural gas" to Melissa Partin, she's likely as not to correct you. "Natural gas is only natural when it stays in the ground," says Partin, who wrote a report called The Health, Safety, Climate, and Economic Risks of Fossil Gas Extraction and Use . The report outlines the dangers of fossil gas (her preferred term) that run counter to the myth that it's clean and safe. It takes issue with the idea that we need it to transfer to renewables, and points out that Black and Indigenous

Phragmites. You say "frag-MITE-eez," not "FRAG-mites." But the most important thing to know about phragmites is that it's an invasive, non-native species, not to be confused with native phragmites. The invasives came to America originally from central and eastern Europe, and they've been marching steadily - if slowly - across the continent from New England. Now the Community Action Duluth Stream Corps, headed by Brandon Van Tassel, is tasked with getting rid of the plants, which are a perfect

Dr. Brandon Knott and the other members of the international team working on a better way to recycle plastics are excited about their work. For one thing, they're trying to solve a problem that everyone "gets," more or less. Here's the deal: when you recycle plastics these days, it's done with machines that grind them up, melt them down, and make new stuff out of them. But just like the old days of analog videotape and sound recording, everytime you make a new copy - in this case, a new pop

For decades, the St. Louis River Alliance has been leading the charge to heal the badly polluted St. Louis River. Spurred by the enthusiasm of more and more people drawn every year to the water to volunteer, recreate or just sit and watch the water flow by, the St. Louis River has continued its comeback story. From cleaning up the pollution left by decades of dumping in the river, to fostering habitat for wild rice, sturgeons and piping plovers, people have been working hard to heal the St.