The smoke from dozens of wildfires in the western United States is stretching clear across the country — and even pushing into Mexico, Canada and Europe. The wildfires racing across tinder-dry landscape in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington are extraordinary, but the long reach of their smoke isn't unprecedented. The sun was transformed into a perfect orange orb as it set over New York...

NASA is considering approving by next April up to two planetary science missions from four proposals under review, including one to Venus that scientists involved in the project said could help determine whether or not that planet harbors life. The U.S. space agency in February shortlisted four proposed missions that are now being reviewed by a NASA panel, two of which would involve robotic...

COVID-19 screening tests used at airports, schools, and other public places are not particularly effective, a large analysis shows. Researchers synthesized the evidence from 22 studies of various screening methods, including taking people's temperature, asking about symptoms, travel history and exposure to infected or possibly infected people, and combinations of those and other approaches. With...

Wildfires are devastating the American West, but the United States isn't the only place on Earth that's burning. This year, other countries have also experienced their worst wildfires in decades, if not all of recorded history.In each case, the contributing factors are different, but an underlying theme runs through the story: Hotter, drier seasons, driven by the burning of fossil fuels,...

For Grant Saltz, who runs a barbecue restaurant in Mobile, Alabama, what struck him about Hurricane Sally was its steady, deliberate pace, after the storm rumbled into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a powerful Category 2 hurricane. Sally is not the most powerful storm to batter the U.S. Gulf Coast in recent memory, but its glacial pace is becoming a regular feature of the deadly storms,...

Scientists calculate how many tiny fibres our polyester and nylon garments lose in the...

DNA tests on a knife and other evidence must be performed in the case of a Tennessee death row inmate facing execution in December for the stabbing deaths of a woman and her daughter 33 years ago, a judge ruled Wednesday. Shelby County Judge Paula Skahan ruled in favor of attorneys for Pervis Payne, who had filed a petition in July requesting DNA testing in the long-running case. Payne has...

Male and female whale sharks - filter-feeding marine behemoths - grow at different rates, with females doing so more slowly but getting much larger than the guys, according to research that offers deeper insight into the biology of Earth's largest fish. Researchers said on Wednesday they had tracked the growth of 54 whale sharks over a 10-year period in the vast Ningaloo Reef off Australia's west...

Male and female whale sharks - filter-feeding marine behemoths - grow at different rates, with females doing so more slowly but getting much larger than the guys, according to research that offers deeper insight into the biology of Earth's largest fish. Researchers said on Wednesday they had tracked the growth of 54 whale sharks over a 10-year period in the vast Ningaloo Reef off Australia's west...

The Thwaites Glacier is receding by half a mile per year. Scientists recently discovered that warm undercurrents could be eating away its...

Although marketed as a green option, the cars cause more polluting than is claimed, campaigners...

A team of palaeontologists have discovered what they believe is the world's oldest animal sperm,  frozen 100 million years ago inside a tiny crustacean in tree resin in...

The dinosaur known as “STAN,”, approximately 67 million years old, was discovered in 1987 in South Dakota by amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison. “He showed it to scientists at the time who unfortunately misidentified it as a triceratops,” James Hyslop, Christie's head of Science and Natural History, told...

The dinosaur known as “STAN,”, approximately 67 million years old, was discovered in 1987 in South Dakota by amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison. “He showed it to scientists at the time who unfortunately misidentified it as a triceratops,” James Hyslop, Christie's head of Science and Natural History, told...

Conservation experts urge the prime minister to take a lead on reversing the decline in...

There's a chance water levels in the two largest man-made reservoirs in the United States could dip to critically low levels by 2025, jeopardizing the steady flow of Colorado River water that more than 40 million people rely on in the American West. After a relatively dry summer, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released models on Tuesday suggesting looming shortages in Lake Powell and Lake Mead...