There’s an aisle of the grocery store where inflation is looking exceptionally sticky: indulgent treats. Think coffee, chocolates and your favorite snacks. Prices of soft commodities have soared this year because of supply constraints. The return of El Niño and prospects of hotter, drier weather in producing countries is now threatening to exacerbate tight supply. In the UK,...

El Niño—the natural climate phenomenon of warm temperature in the Pacific Ocean—has officially begun, and it’s sure to affect weather patterns globally in conjunction with climate change. On Thursday morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) announced that El Niño conditions were present and that its strength is expected to gradually...

From Toronto, Ontario, to New York City, these are some of the most haunting images of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.

If you were standing on the streets of New York City any time this week, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d somehow been transported to Mars. The local skies were a foggy yellow-orange and the sun was partly obscured behind the haze. Photographs taken by the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers reveal strikingly similar conditions in the Martian atmosphere. On Mars, things are that way...

Space travel is one of the worst things your body can experience. Spending time in zero-g can cause bones to decalcify, muscles to atrophy, the immune system to weaken, the eye to flatten slightly and the optic nerve to swell. Time in space also exposes the human body to unhealthy doses of cosmic radiation, which can increase the lifetime risk of cancer. Now, astronauts have another part of...

An early bird El Nino has officially formed, likely to be strong, warp weather worldwide and give an already warming Earth an extra kick of natural heat, meteorologists announced. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday issued an El Nino advisory, announcing the arrival of the climatic condition. It may not quite be like the others. It formed a month or two earlier than most...

Today, June 8, is World Oceans Day, when stakeholders around the world stop to reconsider the value of ocean conservation. This year’s theme is “Planet Ocean: Tides are Changing”—making the case that by protecting the ocean we are ultimately protecting ourselves. One of its core pillars is supporting sustainable seafood, which, in some cases, means not fishing at all....

As hundreds of wildfires burn in Canada, parts of the U.S. are seeing thick smog and record high air quality issues caused by smoke from the blazes. Swaths of Canada’s eastern provinces, Quebec and Ontario, began battling fires over a week ago. So far, more than 9 million acres of land have been burned and over 20,000 people have evacuated, Canadian officials said Wednesday. Smoke from...

Authorities have urged people across swaths of the Midwest and Northeast to stay indoors as smoke from Canadian wildfires compromises air quality in more than a dozen U.S. states. Inhaling wildfire smoke can lead to health issues ranging from coughing and wheezing to more serious respiratory and cardiovascular problems, particularly for those with underlying conditions—hence why officials...

The destruction in the early hours of June 6 of Ukraine’s massive Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River is a dangerous escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia. It risks massive human and ecological consequences to communities downstream being hit by vast floodwaters, and also threatens a potentially catastrophic nuclear accident. World leaders are also calling it a war crime....

Massive wildfires raging in eastern Canada are sending huge plumes of smoke across the border, blanketing thousands of square miles in the Northeastern U.S. and Upper Midwest, and casting a haze over skies from Wisconsin and Minnesota to New York. Hundreds of out of control fires are currently burning in Quebec, while authorities have managed to contain two wildfires burning in Nova Scotia. All...

More than fifty years ago, my team and I first discovered that whales sing to each other. Recordings we captured of the beautiful, evocative songs of the humpback whale captivated people all over the world. Whale song became the soundtrack for the “Save the Whales” movement, one of the most successful conservation initiatives in history. It led to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection...

Manufacturers DuPont and 3M kept their knowledge secret, taking a page from the tobacco industry, a new study reveals.

On the night of May 22, a group of researchers and students gathered around a computer monitor on the roof of Caltech’s electrical engineering department. The monitors were connected to equipment designed to detect microwave radiation received from a satellite in space. And about 300 miles above them, far over the night’s thick cover of clouds, that satellite was about to pass...

SAN FRANCISCO — The hottest thing in technology is an unprepossessing sliver of silicon closely related to the chips that power video game graphics. It’s an artificial intelligence chip, designed specifically to make building AI systems such as ChatGPT faster and cheaper. Such chips have suddenly taken center stage in what some experts consider an AI revolution that could reshape...

Hold on to your Heinz. The latest looming food shortage is likely to include ketchup, coming hard on the heels of last year’s potato chip crisis and runs on mustard (in France, at least). Three summers’ worth of unprecedented high heat in the world’s key tomato-producing regions—Australia, Spain, and California’s central valley—have led to a precipitous...

Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that’s losing its natural areas, but for well-being of people living on it, according to a new study. The study looks not just at guardrails for the planetary ecosystem but for the first time it includes measures of...

BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party is calling for beefed-up national security measures, highlighting the risks posed by advances in artificial intelligence. A meeting headed by party leader and President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged “dedicated efforts to safeguard political security and improve the security governance of internet data and artificial intelligence,”...

SpaceX could learn a lot from NASA about how to keep rocket launches from harming surrounding nature and wildlife.

BEIJING — China launched a new three-person crew for its orbiting space station on Tuesday, with an eye to putting astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade. The Shenzhou 16 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket just after 9:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) Tuesday. The crew, including...

(NEW YORK) — If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself. New research estimates the city’s landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as “subsidence.” That natural process...

Our medical ancestors sought to heal the mind long before they could treat diseases of the brain. Magicians and priests tended the sick through suggestion, therapeutic bond, and tincture of time, not by science. This has changed. During the last century and a half, our progress in understanding and treating mental suffering has been remarkable by any standard, drawing importantly upon lessons...

Man has killed off much of the Earth’s existing wildlife, and some scientists argue that human activity has set off the world’s sixth mass extinction event. New research now shows global animal populations are declining more rapidly than earlier believed. Authors of the study published in the journal Biological Reviews on May 15 analyzed more than 71,000 animal species—spanning...

From carpets to toilet paper, these persistent manufacturing chemicals are everywhere. Here's what to know.