A flash of pink breaks the muddy surface of the Amazon River as scientists and veterinarians, waist-deep in the warm current, patiently work a mesh net around a pod of river dolphins. They draw it tighter with each pass, and a spray of silver fish glistens under the harsh sun as they leap to escape the net.

A regulator has approved a world-first vaccine to protect koalas from chlamydia infections, which are causing infertility and death in the iconic native species that is listed as endangered in parts of Australia.

Every time humans cut into the Amazon rainforest or burn or destroy parts of it, they're making people sick.

It's an idea Indigenous people have lived by for thousands of years. Now a new study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment adds to the scientific evidence supporting it, by finding that instances of several diseases were lowered in areas where forest was set aside for Indigenous peoples who maintained it well.

Fifty-five heat waves over the past quarter-century would not have happened without human-caused climate change, according to a study published Wednesday.

Rescuers have recovered the bodies of 15 people who died in flash flooding in two Indonesian provinces, while authorities said Wednesday 10 others were missing.

Wind and solar power generated more than a third of Brazil's electricity in August, the first month on record the two renewable sources have crossed that threshold, according to government data made public on Thursday and analyzed by energy think tank Ember.

The clean energy sources accounted for 34% of the country's electricity generation last month, producing a monthly record of 19 terawatt-hours (TWh), enough to power about 119 million average Brazilian homes for a month, Ember told The Associated Press.

By Jayde N. Hirniak, Arizona State University

(THE CONVERSATION) If you were lucky 74,000 years ago, you would have survived the Toba supereruption, one of the largest catastrophic events that Earth has seen in the past 2.5 million years.

Schools closed, flights were disrupted and tens of thousands of people were evacuated in southern China as Tropical Storm Tapah made landfall Monday.

The economic hub of Guangdong province near Hong Kong halted some train and ferry services ahead of the storm, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Dozens of scenic areas were closed and some 60,000 people were evacuated across the region by Sunday afternoon, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The risk of direct impacts from Hurricane Kiko decreased Monday as the tropical cyclone showed signs it would pass to the north of the Hawaiian Islands, forecasters said.

Outside of a mountain village in the northern outskirts of the United Arab Emirates, clouds on a recent weekend suddenly crowded out the white-hot sun that bakes this desert nation in the summer months. Fierce winds blew over planters and pushed a dumpster down the street. And then came the most infrequent visitor of all: rain.