In a win for climate activists and the anti-fracking movement, and a blow to fossil fuel polluters and the federal regulatory agencies that enable them, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) denied a key permit to companies seeking to build a 124-mile fracked gas pipeline.

The Constitution Pipeline Project—a joint venture between four oil and gas companies—was proposed to transport fracked natural gas from Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania through Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Schoharie counties in New York to existing interstate pipelines.

The pipeline route would have crossed hundreds of streams and wetlands, including those supplying drinking water to families along the proposed route. Using the power granted under the Clean Water Act, DEC officials rejected the companies’ permit application, citing damage the project would do to water supplies along the pipeline route.

“Today is an incredible Earth Day! Thank you again to Governor Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation for putting the protection of our precious water and the public health and safety of New Yorkers ahead of the special interests of the oil and gas industry,” Mark Ruffalo, advisory body member of New Yorkers Against Fracking, said. “This is what real climate leadership looks like.”

The nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice has been staunchly opposed to the project and represented a coalition of groups—Catskill Mountainkeeper, Riverkeeper, Clean Air Council, Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and the Pennsylvania and Atlantic chapters of Sierra Club—in pipeline approval proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC.)

Last month FERC gave the go-ahead to pipeline developers to clear-cut 20 miles of trees along the pipeline’s planned route through Pennsylvania. Pointing to the fact that New York State had not yet issued a permit, Earthjustice and other environmental groups called FERC’s move premature and illegal. New York’s rejection of the project today bolsters support for criticism of FERC as an agency that rubber stamps fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

 The DEC’s decision comes as world leaders gathered in New York City to sign the historic Paris climate agreement. More than 170 countries, including those responsible for the bulk of the world’s climate pollution, signed the commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

Here’s what Earthjustice attorney Moneen Nasmith had to say about today’s announcement:

“Today in New York City, world leaders gathered to sign the COP 21 climate agreement. Today in Albany, state leaders displayed precisely the leadership necessary to help us meet the goals of this historic climate treaty—by choosing to protect New York State’s waterways and reject a massive fossil fuel infrastructure project.

“The 124-mile Constitution pipeline, planned to run through five counties and two states, and hundreds of waterways is the sort of massive fossil fuel investment that would have locked our region into continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels and irreparably damaged precious water resources at a time when we need instead to be protecting these resources and speeding the transition to 100 percent renewable energy for all.

“World leaders and our leaders in New York State are doing what’s necessary. Unfortunately their efforts are undermined by rogue agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which is failing to do its job and evaluate the environmental and climate impacts of the massive fossil fuel infrastructure projects it approves. FERC is an outlier agency that, with every day, is exposed as being drastically out of step with its peers. It’s time for fossil fuel industry enablers and apologists to step aside and let the rest of us continue the work necessary to solve the climate crisis and transition our society to 100 percent renewable energy.”

Food & Water Watch’s executive director Wenonah Hauter agrees:

“Governor Andrew Cuomo’s smart decision to reject the Constitution Pipeline sends a clear message: New Yorkers’ health and safety will not be sacrificed for fossil fuel industry profits.

“Just a year after his monumental decision to ban fracking statewide, Cuomo has clearly embraced the urgings of thousands of grassroots activists: Clean, renewable energy is the only responsible path forward for New York. This latest act by the governor against fracked gas infrastructure sets a bold example for all public officials in America: Environmental leaders don’t frack, and they don’t tolerate new fracking infrastructure either.

“The Cuomo administration set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. The state would not be able to meet that by swapping out one fossil fuel for another. That’s what new pipelines and gas-fired power plants would do—and why rejecting the Constitution pipeline was the only sensible option.”

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The Beaufort Sea is melting way ahead of schedule. 

The sea, which borders Alaska to the north, typically melts during the summer and re-freezes in the winter. But this year, pieces of it began detaching in April, a time when it has historically remained frozen. 

Here's what it looked like on April 1, as captured by satellite:

And then on April 24:

The ice's expected summer melt typically happens later on in May.

NASA attributed this decline in part to a record-low maximum ice extent. The maximum refers to the period during the year when there's the most sea-ice. The amount of sea ice this winter peaked at just 5.607 million square miles.

For comparison, here's what the same area looked like April 24, 2015, the year with the second-lowest maximum ice extent:

Looking even farther back, here's what the same area looked like on April 24, 2014. 

Since 1979, when satellites started collecting data on when sea ice hit a maximum, it has declined by about 10%. 

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Leonardo DiCaprio gave an impassioned speech about climate change to hundreds of world leaders Friday. The group was assembled by the United Nations to sign the Paris Agreement, an international climate change agreement to lower emissions and keep warming levels below 35.6 Fahrenheit. 

Story by Anjelica Oswald, editing by Stephen Parkhurst

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A Reddit user uploaded this map of the world onto the network's "MapPorn" subreddit. The image displays every country covered in the same camo pattern as its armed forces, though the disclaimer in the bottom left notes that a "degree of artistic license and/or inaccuracy should be assumed."

On this map, made by Vectorworldmap.com in 2009, the pixelated patterns of Russia, China, and Canada might seem overly conspicuous in natural surroundings. The implementation of "digital camouflage," as the pattern is called, ended up costing billions for the US military. But digital camouflage can in fact be effective in fooling the human eye over various distances.

The map also gives an idea of the kinds of environments in which different countries expect to fight. Desert countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia wear tan and gray camo; the lushly-forested states of sub-Saharan Africa wear a deep green. 

The world's armies began adopting camouflage in the 19th century, though the US would only follow suit in the early 20th. 

Julian Farrance, of the National Army Museum in London, told the BBC the change was driven by the development of smokeless ammunition, which left soldiers more visible and exposed compared to earlier firearms. At the same time, the ability to fire rounds without exposing one's location made it more possible for soldiers to conceal themselves on the battlefield.

As the map shows, the advantages are so clear in modern warfare that camo has now been universally adopted.

SEE ALSO: This chart shows just how massive the US Navy is

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An international team of researchers has discovered a 600-mile long coral reef sitting at the murky, muddy mouth of the Amazon river.

The incredible discovery proves that no matter how well we think we've mapped the surface of our planet, there are still secrets left for us to discover.

In this case, a huge, flourishing sponge and coral reef that appears to stretch from the southern tip of French Guiana all the way to the state of Maranhão in Brazil. 

The announcement also comes at a time when we're running incredibly low on hope for coral reefs everywhere - just this week scientists admitted that 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef has now been bleached, and large portions might not recover. So the discovery of a new reef is welcome news. But how the hell did it go so long without anyone spotting it?

The reef was able to remain hidden so well because the mouth of the Amazon is, to be frank, a little bit of a mess.

Out of all the water that flows from Earth's rivers into Earth's oceans every day, roughly one-fifth of that water pours out here, at the mouth of the Amazon.

With that, come nutrients, waste, and organic matter collected along the river's 4,344 mile winding journey through the rainforests and farmlands of South America. And by the time it reaches the water, it bring a whole lot of mud and triggers plenty of algae blooms, both of which cloud the water of the flume.

"I kind of chuckled when [Brazilian oceanographer Rodrigo Moura] first approached me about looking for reefs. I mean, it’s kind of dark, it’s muddy — it’s the Amazon River," one of the researchers involved, Patricia Yager, told Robinson Meyer over at The Atlantic. 

"But he pulls out this paper from 1977, saying these researchers had managed to catch a few fish that would indicate reefs are there. He said, 'Let’s see if we can find these.'"

The paper in question, from almost 40 years ago, described species of reef fishes and sponges being dredged up from the mouth of the Amazon — and these species were unique to the tropical flora and fauna you'd find in the islands of the Caribbean.

But since then, no one had really given it much thought - after all, given our general understanding of coral reefs, would you expect to find any under here?

Yager wasn't even there to look for the reefs. She was using the RV Atlantis to look into how Amazonian plume was affecting carbon dioxide absorption in the ocean. But to get approval to study the mouth of the Amazon she needed to get some Brazilian oceanographers involved, and one of those, Rodrigo Moura, asked for her help looking for the reef while they were there.

To everyone's surprise, when the put down the dredger, it came up with sponges, stars, and fish. "I was flabbergasted, as were the rest of the 30 oceanographers,"Yager told The Atlantic.

The discovery makes the reef the most northernmost known in Brazil, Meyer reports. 

What was most surprising is the fact that the reef can exist at all, given the fact that all the mud in the Amazonian plume keeps it sheltered from the Sun most of the time. But return trips by Moura and other Brazilian scientists have suggested that the biology of the reef changes depending on its location, and how much Sun it gets. 

As Meyer reports:

The southern section is only covered by the plume three months of the year, so its environs can complete more photosynthesis. (Most corals live in symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic algae that inhabit their pores.) The southern section contains more staghorns and other colorful corals, "much more what you might imagine a coral reef would look like," says Yager. The north section, dominated by sponges and carnivorous creatures, is shielded from sunlight by the muddy plume more than half of the year.

There still more investigation to be done into the species that live in this new reef. But according to Rebecca Albright, an oceanographer and coral researcher from the Carnegie Institute for Science, who wasn't involved in this study, the find is a pretty big deal.

"Traditionally, our understanding of reefs has focused on tropical shallow coral reefs which harbor biodiversity that rivals tropical rainforests," she said. "The new Amazonian reef system described in this paper is another example of a marginal reef that we didn't previously know existed."

The research has been published in Science Advances. You can also read more about the discovery over at The Atlantic.

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Energy companies are fracking near Australia's Condamine River. Parliament member Jeremy Buckingham demonstrated how it affects the environment — by setting the river on fire.

Story by Jacob Shamsian and A.C. Fowler

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In 2011, a catastrophic chain of events led to nuclear meltdowns that caused over 300,000 people to evacuate the towns surrounding Fukushima. Today, the area remains a radioactive ghost town, still too dangerous for human residents.

But that isn't scaring away the boars.

These days, the wild boar population is thriving in Fukushima. In March, Fukushima University Environmental Radioactivity Institute assistant ecology professor Okuda Keitokunin told local press that vacant houses in areas damaged by the disaster have served as breeding places of burrows for the boar. The number of boars in the area has increased more than 300% since 2014, currently reaching about 13,000.

Unlikely wildlife havens

This isn’t the first time a nuclear disaster has provided a stomping ground for local animals.

The nuclear disaster zone of Chernobyl has seen a surge in its wildlife population over the past few decades, according to National Geographic. It turns out that when you remove humans from the equation, animals like wolves and bears and wild boars actually thrive. In other words, when it comes to choosing between high radiation levels and human cohabitants, we actually appear to be the greater of two evils from a wild animal's perspective.

Radioactive meat

In a perfect world, a surplus of wild boar, Japan’s most popular meat, would be a good thing. But these boars are on a strict radioactive diet, munching only on Fukushima’s contaminated vegetation and other small animals. Tests have shown these boars to have high levels of radioactive substances — making their meat unfit for anyone's dinner plate.

But the problem doesn't end there.

The poisonous boars have been spilling over into surrounding farms, destroying crops and resulting in more than $900,000 dollars in agricultural damage, the Washington Post reports. To combat their rising population, the government has been offering hunters hefty bounties for dead boars. But this presents another interesting problem: what to do with the bodies which, on average, weigh about 200 pounds each.

Where do you put a bunch of radioactive boars?

Thirty-five miles from the plant, the city of Nihonmatsu has been providing a temporary solution, the Post reports. The city is home to three mass graves, each with the capacity to hold around 600 boars. But these pits are getting close to the brim, and there’s not enough space in the city to dig out any more.

The next best solution would be incinerating the bodies. This is where things get a little tricky. Burning the boar carcasses requires a special facility that can filter out radioactive materials to prevent radioactive smoke from raining down on nearby land and contaminating it. The nearest such facility that exists, a $1.4 million crematorium in Soma, can only handle three boars a day, according to ScienceAlert. That isn’t nearly enough to curb their rapidly increasing numbers.

One thing is for certain: If the Japanese government doesn't figure out to do with these radioactive beasts, local farms could be under significant threat.

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There's an incredible variety of science- and nature-focused documentaries and TV episodes streaming on Netflix right now.

From shows that delve into the tasty science of gastronomy to those that unmask the mysterious depths of the ocean, there's no shortage of mind-expanding titles to indulge in.

But there's a downside to all of that choice: It's a lot to choose from.

I polled the Tech Insider team and came up with 18 of the best science documentaries, series, and feature-length films to watch online — a collection including classics and newcomers alike.

Here are our favorites, listed in no particular order:

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"Cooked" (2016)

What it's about: Journalist and food expert Michael Pollan explores the evolutionary history of food and its preparation in this four-part docuseries through the lens of the four essential elements — fire, water, air, and earth. 

Why you should see it: Americans as a whole are cooking less and less, relying more on unhealthy, processed, and expensive and prepared foods. Pollan aims to bring viewers back to the kitchen by forging a meaningful connection to food and the joys of preparation. [Click to watch]

"Cowspiracy" (2014)

What it's about: Documentary filmmakers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn reveal the eye-opening environmental impacts that meat production has had on our planet — including global warming, habitat loss, pollution, and more.

Why you should see it: The US is one of the biggest consumers and producers of meat, yet most people rarely understand how their food choices tie in to abstract problems like climate change, drought, habitat loss, and pollution. As meat consumption continues to rise, so too will its negative effects on the environment. [Click to watch]

"Blackfish" (2013)

What it's about: This film highlights issues with the sea park industry through the tale of Tilikum, a killer whale in captivity at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida. Tilikum has killed several people while living in the park. 

Why you should see it: Sea parks are extremely popular family destinations. This documentary opens your eyes to the troubles with keeping wild animals in captivity through shocking footage and emotional interviews, highlighting potential issues of animal cruelty and abuse when using highly intelligent animals as entertainment. Sea parks make billions of dollars off of keeping animals captive, often at the expense of the health and well-being of its animals. [Click to watch]

Some 40 million tons of reusable plastic cutlery get thrown away every year, most of them after a single use. This plastic can take up to 1,000 years to break down in the environment. Meanwhile, they collect in our oceans, adding to an already long list of environmental concerns we face today.

Bakeys, an edible cutlery manufacturer based in India, might have a promising solution. The company launching the world's first edible cutlery line. Yes — that's a spoon that you can eat. Earlier this month, 9,293 backers on the popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter pledged $278,847, to the startup — 14 times more than its initial $20,000 goal.

Bakeys' products, which include a line of spoons, forks, and chopsticks, are completely biodegradable and edible. The spoons come in savory, sweet, and plain. 

We tried them for a week, and learned quite a bit:

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On a typical day at work, whether I bring my lunch or buy it, I usually pick up disposable plastic cutlery.

But this week, I had a set of Bakey's spoons, which I carried throughout the week in my backpack. My first impression of the spoons: they look sturdier than expected given how light they are, and they smell really good!

I get lunch — some sweet potato stew — from one of my usual spots, and skip the disposable cutlery section, feeling pretty good about myself.

Aspiration is a different kind of investment firm. They create investment products geared toward middle class investors — and, unlike traditional banks, you can pay them whatever you want. 

And now, they're partnering with grasroots environmental organization Sierra Club to bring socially conscious investing — that is, investing in companies that have strong ESG —environmental, social, and governance records — to everyday people, rather than only a wealthy few.

Aspiration founder and CEO Andrei Cherny told Business Insider over the phone that while sustainable investing is an almost $7 trillion dollar market in the US, only a tiny portion of that is available to middle class investors through instruments like mutual funds and ETFs. 

"It's kind of backwards because sustainable investing is actually even more skewed towards the wealthiest in our country than investing overall," says Cherny. "A big part of what we're doing at Aspiration is 'democratizing' sustainable investing."

There's a huge demand for what they're doing.

Big Wall Street firms, like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, launched investment products earlier this year that focus on ESG factors, but Aspiration is one of the only firms that gears its product towards everyday people, rather than institutional investors and the wealthy. 

"Three-quarters of the people who open an Aspiration account have no other investments when they first come to us," says Cherny. "And that's not necessarily because they don't have the access, it's because they don't feel that there's financial products and financial firms that really share their values."

Here's how Aspiration — whose motto is "Do Well. Do Good."— works:

• For a minimum investment of $500 dollars, you can sign up on Aspiration's website.
• On the website, there's a slider that customers can use to choose between zero and two percent fees, that can be changed at any time.
• Once you've invested, Aspiration directs your money to top-performing companies that are not only good investments, but good for the planet as well. 

The thing that sets Aspiration apart from regular banks — which charge you a fee based on the percentage of assets invested — is that with Aspiration, you can pay whatever you wish. Even if that means you don't pay anything at all.

"The customer decides what to pay us," says Cherny. "And well over 90% of our customers pay us a fair amount. I think that speaks to the fact of the different kind of relationships were building with clients and customers."

Through Aspiration's core investment strategy, Cherny says they'll be looking at companies that are free from things like fossil fuels, tobacco, and firearms. 

"We're putting it into a product where many people can have access to that kind of investing," says Cherny. 

But, Aspiration won't just be eliminating bad companies — called "negative screening" in the sustainable investment world — from their fund's portfolio.

They'll also be actively investing in companies that are doing the right things — the environmental leaders in their respective industries.

"First and foremost, it's just smart investing," he says. "It is investing in companies where management is taking a long-term view, and not just focusing on their short term profits."

And, according to Cherny, these companies tend to perform better over time. 

"They're not just doing it from the goodness of their heart, but when they have good environmental practices, they're actually lowering their energy costs," says Cherny. "Those are the things companies should be doing because it's just smart management."

The Sierra Club, for its part, will publicize Aspiration's product to its 2.4 million members.

"We are excited to work with Aspiration to bring sustainable investing opportunities to our members," Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director said in a press release. "We see it as another form of activism – one that lets our members push more companies to adopt environmentally friendly practices partaking in the rising profits of those that already do.”

The critical piece of Aspiration's mission is combining the disparate worlds of investing and environmental activism. 

"The real impact of sustainable investing is going to be when the big players in our economy start feeling real pressure to think long term, to think about the planet, to think about their own people," says Cherny. "That's when the real change happens."

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Vietnam's breadbasket southwestern region has been hit by the worst drought in 90 years, badly damaging the nation's economy.

The Southeast Asian country saw a huge slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter as agriculture output dropped sharply. GDP growth slipped to 5.6% year-over-year in the first quarter, down from 6.7% in 2015, according to statistics cited by a Capital Economics team led by Gareth Leader.

The drought, partially attributed to this year's El Niño, could also lead to a serious reduction in exports of major goods produced in the region, including rice, seafood, and coffee, according to Capital Economics.

Water levels in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, a region that accounts for 50% of the country's rice and fruit production, 90% of its rice exports, and 60% of shrimp and fish exports, are at their lowest levels since 1926.

Moreover, a report from the UN found that nearly 393,000 acres of rice in Vietnam have been lost, and an additional 1.24 million will likely be damaged by mid-2016. Those losses have already had huge effects on production: The first quarter of 2016 saw rice output fall by 6.2% year-over-year, which reduced Vietnam's total agricultural production by 2.7%, according to figures cited by Bloomberg.

And the immediate future for rice doesn't look much brighter. The chief executive officer of Intimex Group, a Vietnamese exporter of agricultural products, told Bloomberg that rice exports from Vietnam could drop by 10% this year.

Not only does this affect the livelihoods of the Vietnamese farmers, but it also affects the biggest buyers of Vietnamese agricultural goods.

"People in Indonesia and the Philippines will go hungry if the Thais and Vietnamese don't produce enough rice," Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, told Bloomberg. "This is a preview of the longer-term effect of development and climate change to the Mekong Delta."

Notably, this drought comes at a time when some analysts are getting a bit concerned about Vietnam's growth overall — not just in the agriculture sector. Although Vietnam saw the third-fastest growth in Asia in 2015 — behind only India (7.3%) and China (6.8%) — and the government set an ambitious 6.7% growth target for 2016, analysts have a few concerns.

"The current pace of credit growth is unsustainable [and] worryingly the central bank is targeting faster credit growth this year," noted the Capital Economics team. "Meanwhile, although the dong has remained stable against the dollar since the start of the year, a low level of foreign exchange reserves means the currency is vulnerable to shifts in investor sentiment."

In short, they noted, "there are questions over the sustainability of the current boom."

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The bison is a majestic, if smelly, creature that has called North America home since prehistoric times.

But we nearly lost it to the dust of history.

In April 2016, the US House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill that would honor the country's largest land mammal, the American bison, as our national mammal. The bipartisan legislation now awaits consideration by President Obama, who has the power to sign the bill into law — or veto it.

We recently published a defense on why this formidable beast deserves the recognition.

However, we just couldn't shake this one image of the bison that we found:

Centuries ago, US settlers massacred the species.

The bison used to roam the plains in numbers as high as 60 million, helping sustain indigenous people by providing food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Many Native American tribes still consider the bison a sacred and spiritual symbol of their history.

Sadly, westward expansion during the 19th century nearly wiped bison from the Great Plains. Settlers slaughtered some 50 million for food and sport. Then they almost disappeared completely, according to the US National Park Service (our emphasis added):

In 1800, it was estimated there were forty million bison, by 1883, there were few wild bison in the United States - most were in Yellowstone National Park. By 1900, there were less than a thousand left in North America.

This slaughter also decimated Native Americans' most important resource. Their near-extinction all but ended the fight for native independence.

This dark story has at least one bright spot, though. Thanks to a concerted effort by ranchers, conservationists, tribes, and politicians, the bison has returned from the brink of extinction — and today these awesome beasts thrive.

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Step aside, bald eagle.

The US House of Representatives and the Senate just passed a bill that would honor the country's largest land mammal, the American bison, as our national mammal (joining the bird of prey as an official national symbol). The bipartisan legislation now awaits consideration by President Obama.

The National Bison Legacy Act is long overdue.

More than 100 years ago, the bison — one of the most majestic, if smelly, creatures on Earth — rebounded from near-extinction. Today, they happily roam all across the country.

Here are some facts about what should become America's most prized animal.

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The bison is more American than apple pie.

Often mistaken for the buffalo, the bison features one defining characteristic: its hump.

The muscular hump acts as the bison's snowplow, allowing the beast to swing its head from side to side, pave a path through drifts of snow, and reach grasses hidden below.

Source: National Park Service

The illegal wildlife trade is one of the largest criminal enterprises on the planet.

In fact, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranks wildlife trafficking alongside the drug trade, arms dealing, and human trafficking in terms of illicit profits, which are estimated to be between $8 and $10 billion a year.

Animals are sold as pets, consumed as delicacies, and used to create traditional medicines all around the globe.

Trafficking serves as one of the biggest sources of funding for organized crime.

Scroll through these photos for an inside look at animals that have been rescued.

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This Malayan sun bear was seized as part of a shipment of creatures estimated to be worth $20,000.

Black spotted freshwater turtles are pictured after they were seized in a raid in Karachi, Pakistan.

Authorities caught a man trying to smuggle 22 endangered yellow-crested cockatoos out of Indonesia inside water bottles.

Man-made climate change is already cutting into oxygen levels in some parts of the world's oceans and could start producing new "dead zones" in some parts of the seas by 2030, US researchers warned this week.

Seawater has natural swings in the amount of oxygen it holds.

But warming makes it harder for that water to absorb and distribute oxygen — and if carbon emissions continue on their current path, human-produced warming is likely to lead to falling oxygen concentrations across large areas of the oceans, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have found.

"It's very difficult to pull out the human driven-trend until that trend becomes so pronounced that it falls outside the envelope of that natural variability," said Matthew Long, an oceanographer at the Colorado-based center and the leader of the new study.

So Long and his colleagues used computer models to calculate the extent of the natural swings and projected when oxygen depletion that was clearly human-made was likely to start happening.

In some environments, like the Arctic — where temperatures are rising roughly twice as fast as they are across the planet as a whole — and the tropical Atlantic Ocean, the process has started already, the study concluded. Much of the Pacific Ocean is likely to start seeing large sections with reduced oxygen by 2030, while other stretches of the Pacific and much of the northern Indian Ocean will see little change by the end of the century.

"The fact that ocean deoxygenation is occurring and will continue to occur, likely at an accelerated rate, is a near-certainty if human-driven warming continues," Long said.

The findings were published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, put out by the American Geophysical Union.

"I think for a long time that people thought the oceans were unchangeable that we could never have an impact on such large bodies of water," said Keryn Gedan, a marine ecologist at the University of Maryland, College Park. "This paper makes you realize how far our reach is and the impact that climate change is going to have globally."

Warmer tropical oceans, supercharged by the past year's El Niño phenomenon, are already causing a worldwide coral bleaching event that is killing the picturesque reefs of the tropical oceans. Add in a reduction in the concentration of dissolved oxygen, and the effect is likely to pose a threat to some forms of marine life.

"I think it has implications for the health of marine ecosystems," Long said. "And to the extent that we rely on those systems for a variety of services — one of them is a food supply — we're basically pushing the system towards a place where those services may be less reliable."

Another study out this week, published by the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, points to the continental margins off the Pacific coasts of the Americas and the Arabian Sea from Pakistan to southeastern Africa as potential zones where lack of oxygen and ocean acidification — caused by the ocean absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — could damage undersea ecosystems at depths of 200 meters (650 feet) or more.

Those are the areas where human activities like fishing and oil and gas exploration are most common, said Lisa Levin, a marine ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and co-author of that paper.

"We rely on bottom fisheries in these areas. Our study was essentially on fish food," Levin said. "Species that form structures that provide biodiversity-sustaining habitat on the sea floor might be important to watch for susceptibility to ocean deoxygenation, acidification, and warming. They are also vulnerable to human disturbance."

How big an effect that reduced oxygen levels would have on marine life will depend on several variables, Gedan said.

"If an area has low oxygen to begin with, then any change is going to have fairly significant ecological repercussions," said Gedan, who studies coastal estuaries. Larger fish or other organisms can flee, but smaller animals or fixed species like coral would be in danger.

"We know that the shallow, coastal ocean is warming faster than the open ocean, especially in estuaries that are fairly sheltered," she said. "We're seeing numerous dead zones pop up all around the world, and that's going to become more common."

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Right now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's ship Okeanos Explorer is exploring the deep waters in and around the Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean — and researchers are broadcasting the journey via livestream.

This is the deepest part of the world's oceans, reaching more 36,000 feet at the lowest point. And these deep waters are full of strange and mysterious creatures, including extreme life forms that can live on and around underwater volcanoes and hydrothermic vents.

More people have been to space than have explored the deepest depths of the ocean, so scientists still have much to learn about what exactly happens so far below the surface of the sea. 

At certain times there's more to see than others. There are parts of this area of the sea that are mostly dark and mysterious. But previous missions exploring deep waters have revealed life forms never before seen.

"[W]e expect to explore bottomfish habitats, new hydrothermal vent sites, mud volcanoes, deep-sea coral and sponge communities, and seamounts, as well as subduction zone and trench areas," the NOAA mission plan states.

The Okeanos Explorer will be gathering footage and streaming from the Trench through July 10. You can also always rewind the cameras up to four hours to catch up on what you've missed — this is a great background stream for a unique escape from your desk.

Certain cameras show data; others show the world outside the ship. At a lucky moment you might catch a glimpse of an alien-like creature.

Earlier this week, the team captured footage of a never-before-seen jellyfish that looks like some sort of space-spider, with glowing bulbs in its body.

Here are the streams from the three cameras aboard the vessel, each with a different view:

Camera 1:

Camera 2:

Camera 3:

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NOW WATCH: Scientists recorded something terrifying at the deepest part of the world's oceans

NASA satellites measured lightning strikes on the ground and in the clouds for 16 years to find the most active hotspots around the world. One lake came out on top.

Produced by Maya Dangerfield. Reporting by Rebecca Harrington. Images courtesy of NASA and Reuters.

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SEE ALSO: The most terrifying part about getting struck by lightning is what happens to you afterwards

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Scientists at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain are spearheading a project called "Cities at Night" to create a gallery of photos taken from the International Space Station. Here's what they found in the process.

Original reporting by Julia Calderone. Produced by Christine Nguyen. 

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If you've heard doom-and-gloom stories about climate change refugees, you've probably thought of the problem as something that only affects people living in far-flung places — countries that are not the United States.  

Well, you'd be wrong. Climate change — particularly sea level rise — is already creating refugees right here in the US, according to a story from The New York Times. 

Take the Isle de Jean Charles, a low-lying island on the Gulf coast of Louisiana, for example. It is sinking.

While only a few dozen people call the island home, their way of life stretches back generations. And it's proving extremely difficult, and expensive, to resettle them.

The island, which was once 22,000 acres, has been reduced to only 320 acres, according to The Huffington Post. 

Following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, which ravaged the coast of Louisiana in 2005 (much of which lies below sea-level), state officials devised a master plan of flood walls and levees to cope with the rising tide — costing taxpayers billions of dollars, according to The New York Times. 

But Isle de Jean Charles lies outside the planned walls. With the unstoppable onslaught of climate change, the island's residents will have no choice but to relocate, as saltwater floods their homes and destroys their soil. 

Out of the $1 billion dollars set aside by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to build climate-resilient infrastructure, $52 million is planned to help Isle de Jean Charles residents resettle, per The Huffington Post. 

However, many islanders — who have deep ancestral ties to the island — don't want to relocate, and would rather take their chances.

"I’ve lived my whole life here, and I’m going to die here," says Hilton Chaisson, a long-time island resident told The New York Times. "We always find a way."

"This is not just a simple matter of writing a check and moving happily to a place where they are embraced by their new neighbors," Mark Davis, the director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy, told The New York Times.

And if it's proving difficult to move a few dozen people from an island in Louisiana, what's going to happen when more populous low-lying regions, say, New York City or South Florida, face getting drowned with saltwater?

"If you have a hard time moving dozens of people, it becomes impossible in any kind of organized or fair way to move thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or, if you look at the forecast for South Florida, maybe even millions," Davis told The New York Times. 

Either way, it's going to cost taxpayers a lot of money. 

Read the rest of The New York Times story here. 

SEE ALSO: 2016 is shaping up to shatter the temperature records we just broke last year

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NOW WATCH: Here’s what scientists think aliens could actually look like

Recycling an outfit for a fashionable event like the Met Gala is unheard of — that is, until Emma Watson took to the red carpet Monday night in a striking black and white gown made completely out of recycled materials. 

The gown was made of repurposed plastic bottles to keep with the "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology" theme and was created through a collaboration by Watson, Calvin Klein, and Eco-Age, a company that helps businesses introduce sustainable solutions.

The body of the gown was made using three fabrics, all woven out of yarns made from recycled plastic bottles. Even the smallest details, like the zippers, were made from recycled materials and the linings were made of organically grown and crafted cotton and silk. 

Watson wrote on Facebook that the gown is made up of three pieces including a bustier, trousers, and a train, all of which the actress and activist has pledged to re-use and wear again in the future. 

She also wrote in her Facebook post that, "Being able to repurpose this waste and incorporate it into my gown for the ‪#‎MetGala‬ proves the power that creativity, technology, and fashion can have by working together."  

Here's Watson's full Facebook message about her gown:

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NOW WATCH: This device turns bottles into plastic string, and will change the way we recycle