Environmental biomarkers, as a biological process, encompass the organismal and cellular responses by which living systems detect, transduce, and manifest measurable changes to environmental exposures such as pollutants, radiation, or other stressors. This process involves molecular events including altered gene expression, protein modification, metabolite shifts, and physiological or behavioral changes that collectively encode information about exposure, effect, or susceptibility. These responses generate quantifiable indicators (e.g., specific stress proteins, oxidative damage products, enzyme activities) that integrate dose, duration, and biological impact of environmental factors, thereby serving as mechanistic links between external stressors and ensuing adaptive, toxic, or pathogenic outcomes in organisms and ecosystems.
The Pacific islands will face food shortages, and drinking water will be affected by rising seas, scientists said Wednesday, as a U.N. report found the world would fail to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Environment
Sep 2, 2026
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20
Ocean plastic pollution is accidentally on the menu for southern giant petrel chicks. Even small nibbles of it may affect their physiology during development, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 31, 2026
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13
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are widely known as essential pollinators, but researchers using a "One Health" approach have also identified them as biological sentinels of environmental health. Honey bees continuously interact ...
Environment
Aug 28, 2026
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21
Doctors can often detect diseases in humans using minimally invasive methods, like blood or urine tests, before symptoms become severe. Now, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are applying a similar ...
Ecology
Jul 27, 2026
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14
Lithium in drinking water is a widespread and persistent source of human exposure across Tribal communities in the Western United States, according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. ...
Environment
Jul 27, 2026
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41
Astrobiology has long been split into two camps: a search for "biosignatures" and a search for "intelligence." These look for very different things, but they also leave a huge gap in between. It took 3.5 billion years for ...
Astrobiology
Jul 14, 2026
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38
Climate change is transforming livestock farming—and at a faster rate than many anticipate. More frequent and intense heat waves place a heavy physiological strain on dairy cows.
Plants & Animals
Jul 14, 2026
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5
Baboons are one of the most widespread of Africa's primate groups. They range across sub-Saharan Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons' ability to spread across such a vast geographic area is based on their great ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 27, 2026
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38
The Himalayas are often seen as one of Earth's great natural barriers, separating the heavily populated and industrialized regions of South Asia from the remote Tibetan Plateau. But new research, published in Geophysical ...
Artificial light spilling into coastal waters from cities, ports, roads and hotels is disrupting sleep in coral reef fish and is associated with changes in markers linked to brain health, according to a new study from Bar-Ilan ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 22, 2026
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