Nestled in the heart of western Montana’s stunning natural landscape, the University of Montana (UM) is a place where top-tier students, educators and researchers from across the country and around the globe come and thrive. UM is located in Missoula, Montana’s second-largest city with a population of 80,000 residents. The University draws a diverse population to Missoula and helps cultivate an educated, engaged and vibrant community.
More than 10,000 students attend UM, where they receive a world-class education in a broad range of subjects that include the liberal arts, graduate and postdoctoral study and professional training. Signature programs include Wildlife Biology, Ecology, Creative Writing, Journalism, and the Health Sciences.
Over 50 fire ecologists across the Western U.S. took an unprecedented look at how forests in thousands of locations are recovering from fire in a changing climate. The results were alarming.
A gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park.
NPS/Jim Peaco
Less than a century ago, Colorado hunted, trapped and poisoned all the wolves within its borders. Today it’s restoring them – a change that reflects a profound shift in human thinking.
The fire risk goes beyond rising temperatures and dry conditions.
Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images
More homes are burning in wildfires in nearly every Western state. The reason? Humans.
El argentino Lionel Messi es homenajeado con una capa antes de recibir el trofeo de la Copa del Mundo en el estadio Lusail de Catar, el 18 de diciembre de 2022.
AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis
Una estudiosa de las tradiciones culturales de Oriente Medio explica la historia y el significado del bisht.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi is honored with a cloak prior to receiving the World Cup trophy at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, on Dec. 18, 2022.
AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis
Morality police first appeared in Iran soon after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But similar forces were present in parts of the Middle East even prior to the date.
Women holding up photographs of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini during a demonstration in Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, on Sept. 24, 2022.
Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images
A scholar of Iranian politics explains how Iranians have organized resistance movements for the past several decades while risking arrest and public flogging.
From discovering hidden populations of vulnerable newts to dropping “seed bombs”, two new research papers show how genomics and drones help restore threatened ecosystems.
Fresh grizzly bear tracks in Yellowstone National Park.
Jacob W. Frank, NPS/Flickr
Parks and refuges are important for conservation, but without connections, they’re like islands. Linking them by protecting land in between makes it possible for wildlife to move over bigger areas.
In heat and drought like the western U.S. and Canada are experiencing in 2021, all it takes is a spark to start a wildfire.
Jim Watson/Getty Images
Every year, the number of wildfires caused by humans spikes on Independence Day. There are safer ways to celebrate amid the heat and drought.
Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire jumped the Continental Divide on Oct. 22, 2020, and eventually became Colorado’s second-largest fire on record.
Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists studied charcoal layers in the sediment of lake beds across the Rockies to track fires over time. They found increasing fire activity as the climate warmed.
What determines whether a genetically modified vegetable or fruit is natural?
VICTOR HABBICK VISIONS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
What criteria should be used to determine whether a food is natural? What if gene-editing techniques produce changes indistinguishable from those that evolve naturally? Is the food still natural?
The January 2019 collapse of a dam in Brumadinho, Brazil, sent mining tailings and mud over the landscape for miles, destroying this bridge and killing 300 people.
Andre Penner/AP
Dams built to hold enormous quantities of toxic mining waste have a long history of spills. Decisions in the Pacific Northwest threaten three free-flowing rivers there.
Rural Americans are more likely than urban Americans to experience disability.
Natee K Jindakum/Shutterstock.com
In 1911, lesbians led the nation’s largest feminist organization. They promoted a diverse and inclusive women’s rights movement.
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott.
University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-00008, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library/Bernard Hoffman, photographer
Long before Chasten Buttigieg became a ‘not-so-secret weapon’ in his husband Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, another same-sex couple profoundly reshaped American social policy.
Since the Great Recession, the employment rate has gone up — but some rural groups lag behind.
Josh Sorenson
Data gathered from EPA reports, staffers and retirees show the Trump administration has brought fewer environmental enforcement actions to conclusion and deferred more to states.
The Blackfeet always faced their tipis towards the rising sun, including on winter solstice.
Beinecke Library via Wikimedia Commons
For indigenous peoples, winter solstice has been a time to honor their ancient sun deity. Their rituals reveal a deep understanding of the natural world.