There was no way of knowing on Aug. 8, 1975, just how many readers turned to the new paper in the journal Science by geochemist Wallace Broecker, of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. It was hardly possible to track clicks or likes nearly half a century ago, so Broecker simply had to hope his message got through. It was a pressing one, conveyed directly by its...

Stratospheric aerosol injection, the idea of spraying sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to cool the planet, is one of the most controversial topics in climate science, with scientists engaged in a fierce, yearslong debate over whether even researching such techniques poses unacceptable risks. To some people outside of that community, though, it no longer matters much what the...

The real czars may be long gone, but for decades, the White House has been doing a good job of keeping the role—or at least the honorific—alive, appointing a director to oversee a particular task or issue, and bestowing the title along with it. We’ve had the Ebola Czar, the Drug Czar, the Budget Czar, the Climate Czar, and more. Yesterday, at a press conference at...

BOSTON (AP) — Boston firefighter Daniel Ranahan had heard about colleagues getting cancer but he was stunned when doctors discovered a tumor in his chest. He was only 30 and had been in the Boston Fire Department less than a decade. But as he investigated his diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October 2020 and sought successful treatment, he learned he and others wore gear...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — NASA said Thursday that the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unidentified flying objects are perceived. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The space agency released the findings after a yearlong study into UFOs. In its 33-page report, an independent team commissioned...

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Earth’s climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and “novel” chemicals (human-made compounds like...

The Mediterranean storm that dumped torrential rain on the Libyan coast, setting off flooding that’s believed to have killed thousands of people, is the latest extreme weather event to carry some of the hallmarks of climate change, scientists say. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Daniel — dubbed a “medicane” for its hurricane-like characteristics...

We all know couples who, on the surface at least, seem incompatible. One person is an introvert, the other an extravert; one likes fine wine, the other never drinks; one is deeply religious, the other doesn’t believe. It’s those pairs who give rise to the idea that opposites attract. But that notion appears to be mistaken. According to a new study in the journal Nature Human...

Back in 2014, Omar Yaghi, a chemistry professor at the University of California, noticed something unusual about a new water-absorbing material his lab was developing. Pulling water out of the air is useful for a lot of things (think about the silica beads that come in packaging to keep things dry) but drying out desiccants in order to reuse them generally means heating them to very high...

A landmark United Nations assessment of global progress on cutting emissions shows countries are largely failing to meet their commitments, putting the planet on course for catastrophic global warming. The UN’s climate change secretariat calculated the progress every country in the world has made on their pledges to reduce emissions and assessed how much it’s helping to...

A Japanese rocket bound for the moon took off early Thursday, offering relief to a battered national space program following a string of weather delays, major setbacks and high-profile failures. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H2-A rocket lifted off around 8:42 a.m. local time from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern...

(GENEVA) — Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the...

NEW DELHI — India’s moon rover has completed its walk on the lunar surface and been put into sleep mode less than two weeks after its historic landing near the lunar south pole, India’s space mission said. “The rover completes its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into sleep mode,” with daylight on that part of the moon coming to an end, the...

Lyme disease was first identified in 1975, in Lyme, Conn., but scientists still have more questions than answers about how the bacteria responsible for the condition that wreaks such havoc for some people, leaving them with debilitating symptoms for years, while causing relatively mild disease for others. Tests for Lyme have high false negative rates, especially early in the infection, so...

Judging by today’s media coverage, you’d think people had never seen a full moon before. You’d think they’d never seen a supermoon, either. That’s a full moon that occurs when the moon is at its perigee—or closest approach to us—just 357,000 km (222,000 miles) from Earth, making it appear 14% larger and 30% brighter than it is. But about 25% of all...

Recently, many California residents were disturbed to learn that a small, privately-operated bio lab in the Central Valley town of Reedley was shut down by Fresno County Department of Public Health officials after they found that it had been improperly managing almost 1,000 laboratory mice and samples of infectious diseases including COVID-19, rubella, malaria, dengue, chlamydia, hepatitis,...

The moon has been much in the news this August. For most of the month, uncrewed spacecraft from Russia and India were in a hot cosmic race to see which country would earn the bragging rights of being the first to safely land a ship in the moon’s south polar region. On Aug. 20, Russia’s plans came to ruin, after an engine burn intended to fine-tune the ship’s descent went...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Four astronauts from four countries rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday. They should reach the orbiting lab in their SpaceX capsule Sunday, replacing four astronauts living up there since March. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A NASA astronaut was joined on the predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center by...

(NEW YORK) — The smoke from Canadian wildfires that drifted into the U.S. led to a spike in people with asthma visiting emergency rooms—particularly in the New York area. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published two studies Thursday about the health impacts of the smoke, which shrouded city skylines with an...

The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers reported Thursday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Emperor penguins hatch their eggs and raise their chicks on the ice that forms around the continent each Antarctic winter and melts in the summer months. Researchers used...

"I don’t see a bigger purpose than working to save life on earth," says ecologist and ocean conservationist Enric Sala.

Early afternoon local time on Thursday, after years of questions and criticisms directed at the plan, Japan has begun the controversial release into the Pacific Ocean of water previously used to cool the reactors at the defunct Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant after they were damaged in 2011 by a massive earthquake and tsunami. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The 1.3...

And then there was one.  Since earlier this month, there had been something of a footrace in space, with India and Russia vying to be the first country to land a spacecraft in the moon’s south polar region. On July 14, the Indian spacecraft, Chandrayaan-3, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in southeastern India, carrying a 1,726 kg (3,805 lb) lander, which...