Plastic is one of humanity's most useful inventions... and one of its most persistent problems. Plastic has become so ingrained in modern life that it's easy to forget how long it lingers once tossed ...

Stacker looks at how long it takes for the things people throw away to decompose. From a few days to millions of years, find out the decomposition rates of the most commonly trashed household items. – ...

People have long wondered whether modern-day human corpses take longer to decompose due to the addition of preservatives in the food chain. The claim dates back to at least 1991, when an article was ...

One of the ways we degrade the environment is through how we handle our waste products. It’s important to know how the things we carelessly throw away affect the environment. Failing to properly ...

For the first time, researchers have identified what appears to be a network of approximately 20 microbes that universally drive the decomposition of animal flesh. The findings have significant ...

Until the late 19th century, the success of criminal investigations largely hung on witness reports and (often extorted) confessions. A lack of scientific tools meant investigators needed advanced ...