(BERLIN) — British scientists say there are more emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica than previously thought based on evidence of bird droppings spotted from space. A study published Wednesday by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey counted 61 emperor penguin colonies dotted around the southernmost continent, 11 more than the number previously confirmed. Scientists used images...

The coronavirus pandemic has worn out its welcome on Earth. Just try and find someone who’s not sick and tired of working from the basement, wearing a mask, bumping elbows in greeting or simply living with the worry of themselves or their family getting sick. And these inconveniences pale in comparison to the pain many have suffered from sickness or the loss of loved ones. If we could have...

(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Sorry, boomers. Millennials and their younger siblings and children now make up a majority of the U.S. population. A new analysis by the Brookings Institution shows that 50.7% of U.S. residents were under age 40, as of July 2019. The Brookings’ analysis of population estimates released this summer by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the combined millennial,...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — Two NASA astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday in a dramatic, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico to close out an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. It was the first splashdown by U.S. astronauts in 45 years, with the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry people to and from...

If there were any intelligent beings on Mars, they’d likely be confused by a little plaque recently added to the side of the SUV-sized Perseverance Mars rover, which lifted off at 7:50 AM local time on Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida and is set to reach Mars in February. Nobody had planned any late additions to the rover—but no one had planned on a lot of things this...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built — a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers — blasted off Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of ancient life. NASA’s Perseverance rode a mighty Atlas V rocket into...

(BOISE, Idaho) — The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that. The U.S. Department of Energy put out the formal request to build what it calls a fission surface power system that could allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments. The Idaho National...

This article is excerpted from TIME: SUSTAINABILITY, available at retailers and on Amazon. In his book Walden, the American essayist Henry David Thoreau famously documented his attempts to live simply and “deliberately” on the edge of a lake in the woods of Massachusetts. While many today think of Thoreau’s memoir as a paean to a solitary existence, those who study and teach...

(GENEVA) — The U.N. weather agency warned Friday that average temperatures in Siberia were 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) above average last month, a spate of exceptional heat that has fanned devastating fires in the Arctic Circle and contributed to a rapid depletion in ice sea off Russia’s Arctic coast. “The Arctic is heating more than twice as fast as the global average,...

BEIJING — China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet. Tianwen-1 was launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from Hainan Island, a resort province off the south coast of the mainland, state media said. Livestreams showed a successful liftoff, with rockets blazing orange...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — Astronauts squeezed in one last spacewalk Tuesday before turning their attention to the all-important end to SpaceX’s first crew flight. NASA’s Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy floated out of the International Space Station on their fourth and final spacewalk in under a month. Instead of swapping batteries, they had to route cables, hook up a tool storage...

The majority of polar bears will likely disappear by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, according to a new study published Monday. While scientists have long known polar bears are threatened by global heating, this latest study published in Nature Climate Change is the first to identify when and where the bears will disappear. Polar bears rely on sea ice to hunt...

(TOKYO) — A United Arab Emirates spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a seven-month journey to Mars, kicking off the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. The liftoff of the Mars orbiter named Amal, or Hope, from Japan marked the start of a rush to fly to Earth’s neighbor that includes attempts by China and the United States. The UAE said its Amal was functioning after...

As countries entered the final months of talks ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015, China offered a big revelation: the country had burned substantially more coal than it had previously acknowledged in the preceding years. Many diplomats took the voluntary acknowledgment as a sign of good faith. Nonetheless, the update underscored the broader challenges that climate change activists face when...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — A newly discovered comet is streaking past Earth, providing a stunning nighttime show after buzzing the sun and expanding its tail. NASA’s Neowise infrared space telescope discovered the comet in March. Comet Neowise — the brightest comet visible from the Northern Hemisphere in a quarter-century — swept within Mercury’s orbit a week ago. Its...

One of the world's most influential climate activist groups tries to find a new path forward after losing its way

The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill COVID-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries. Gilead Sciences announced the price Monday for remdesivir, and said the price would be $3,120 for patients with private insurance. The amount that...

Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients. Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with...

When Dr. Anthony Fauci said in late May that there’s a “good chance” a COVID-19 vaccine will be ready by the end of this year, Steve Roth badly wanted to believe him. Roth, a 74-year-old New Yorker who endured fever, pneumonia and anxiety while fighting the virus, wants life to go back to normal as much as anyone. And he respects Fauci, the longtime head of the National...

The world’s renewable power capacity grew at a faster rate last year than ever before, while the cost of adding new capacity fell to a record low, says a U.N. Environment Program report released June 10. Researchers found that in 2019, governments and companies created 184 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable power capacity —12% more than was added in 2018. That increase came despite...

The COVID-19 outbreak is a global tragedy. Hundreds of thousands have died, healthcare systems are buckling, and the future is uncertain for millions of people whose livelihoods are collapsing. It is absolutely right that the focus today is on saving lives here and now. In the same spirit of doing what we can to safeguard people’s wellbeing, we must not content ourselves with containing...

The U.K. has recorded its sunniest spring, with May being its sunniest calendar month, since records began over 90 years ago, according to data published by the Met Office—the U.K.’s national weather service—on June 1. For many people in the U.K, it has meant long days of soaking up the sun as lockdown restrictions eased from May 13. However, experts say that this record, along...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — SpaceX delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Sunday, following up a historic liftoff with an equally smooth docking in yet another first for Elon Musk’s company. With test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken poised to take over manual control if necessary, the SpaceX Dragon capsule pulled up to the station and docked...

You never know what you’ve got til it’s gone. And if you don’t believe that, consider the national jubilation at 3:22 PM EDT Saturday afternoon, when an American rocket carrying an American crew lifted off from American soil for the first time since 2011, carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station (ISS). The successful launch comes just a...