Plastic today is everywhere: in our bottles and cell phones, our grocery bags, and our trash. Some plastic garbage is so small, it’s impossible to see with the naked eye: tiny microbeads, which have been banned from some products because of their environmental impact. WNPR went looking for them in the waters off Connecticut’s coast.

One of the largest remaining elm trees in New England has died. But the wood from the 109-foot-tall slippery elm tree is heading on to a new life — as custom furniture. And a percentage of the sales proceeds will support research to breed elms that are resistant to Dutch elm’s disease.

The rare New England cottontail rabbit and other shrubland species are getting some new help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency is targeting 15,000 acres of land in six northeastern states, including Maine, to be included in a new Great Thickets National Wildlife Refuge.

If you spend any time walking in the woods, you see a lot of strange looking trees — trees shaped by the wind, split by lightning or reaching toward. And — occasionally — some twists and turns are man-made.