Scientists have a new idea to explain the strange behavior of ’Oumuamua, our solar system’s first known interstellar visitor. In October 2017 astronomers first spotted the object by chance as it passed through the inner solar system on a slingshot trajectory around the sun that would send it soaring back out to interstellar space. The […]
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Scientists Just Warned We Need to Cut Emissions by 60 Percent, but the U.S. Is Years Away
CLIMATEWIRE | The United Nations’ latest climate assessment has upped the ante for energy policy in the United States, making it clear that rich nations need to cut their emissions more deeply than some of the most ambitious targets. The report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change introduced a new deadline that the world […]
Deadly Fungi Are the Newest Emerging Microbe Threat All Over the World
Editor’s Note (3/21/23): The dangerous fungus Candida auris is spreading rapidly in hospitals and other health care facilities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Monday. Our June 2021 feature story, republished here, explains why C. auris can be so lethal and who is most at risk. It also describes why this pathogen […]
Fixing the Hated Open-Design Office
In 1967 chemical company DuPont gutted a floor of an office building in Delaware and rebuilt it. The firm put almost everyone into one big room with low partitions. In one corner, they provided a lounge with armchairs and Eero Saarinen end tables. This was the first major corporate adaptation of an “open-plan” office in […]
Fast, Deep Cuts in Emissions Are Needed to Avoid ‘Climate Time Bomb’
We are at a critical juncture in the fight to tackle the climate emergency. The world has just a few years to drastically rein in carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst impacts of warming, according to the concluding piece of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was […]
The Science of Spring’s Green Show
Spring’s burst of brightness comes before chloroplasts grow and mature Credit: Rebecca Konte Advertisement Every year trees put on a show in the spring by bursting with bright foliage that seems to celebrate the end of winter. What makes these early leaves so vibrant? The color of a leaf is determined by which wavelengths its […]
Three Easy Ways to Make AI Chatbots Safer
We have entered the brave new world of AI chatbots. This means everything from reenvisioning how students learn in school to protecting ourselves from mass-produced misinformation. It also means heeding the mounting calls to regulate AI to help us navigate an era in which computers write as fluently as people. Or even better. So far, […]
We Need New Warning Systems to Save Lives during Climate Disasters
Finding ways to alert communities of pending climate disasters can yield a tenfold return on investment by avoiding deaths and injuries, according to the United Nations. Those methods can range from satellites that better predict extreme weather events to location-based text messaging systems that can warn at-risk communities of imminent storms, floods, wildfire and other […]
Rare, Dust-Shrouded Dying Star Revealed in New JWST Image
Giant stars may be the ultimate example of “live fast, die young.” Unlike our own sun, which will shine for billions of years, more massive stars can burn through their thermonuclear fuel in only a few million years before sloughing off their outer layers and exploding in a dramatic supernova. This week NASA unveiled a […]
What High-Tech Prizes Does the Downed U.S. Drone Hold? Russia Really Wants to Know
On Tuesday, two Russian fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone flying high above the Black Sea. The jets brought down the drone in international waters, which has kicked off a race between Washington, D.C., and Moscow to recover the drone—a contest that could potentially extend to the depths of the Black […]