Earth & Environment

What it would have been like to experience the dinosaur‑killing asteroid Armageddon

A great Tyrannosaurus rex strides through the conifer trees of her territory, sniffing the air. She picks up the scent from the carcass of a...

Shark embryos reveal ancient blueprint behind the faces of all jawed animals

Scientists studying shark embryos have uncovered evidence that the basic blueprint for building faces in jawed animals has remained largely unchanged for more than...

How ‘snowball Earth’ was a tug-of-war

Decades of research shows that Earth was once entirely or almost entirely frozen. The episode is known as Snowball Earth, and though its occurrence is...

Scientists find major errors in global climate pollution database

A new study from researchers at Northern Arizona University has raised concerns about the accuracy of a widely used global greenhouse gas emissions database...

Ancient continents may have helped create the right conditions for life on Earth

Scientists have discovered that the rise of Earth’s first continents may have played a major role in making life possible. According to a new study...

Climate change is quietly increasing stroke risk, experts warn

Many people think of climate change as something that affects the weather, the oceans, or wildlife. However, scientists are now warning that it is...

Rare metal helped ancient life thrive long before oxygen filled Earth

More than three billion years ago, life on Earth faced a difficult problem. The planet’s oceans contained only tiny amounts of molybdenum, a rare metal...

From tree waste to clean air: How eucalyptus bark could help fight pollution

What if something usually thrown away could help solve some of our biggest environmental problems? New research from RMIT University suggests that eucalyptus bark—often treated...

Vegan diet beats Mediterranean diet on emissions and metabolic health

Scientists have long known that what we eat affects our health. But now, new research shows that our food choices can also have a...

Scientists discover 75-million-year-old mammal that survived the dinosaur era

Scientists have discovered a new species of small mammal that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, offering fresh clues about how early mammals...

How the same genes shaped butterfly wings for 120 million years

Evolution is often described as a process full of chance and randomness. But a new study suggests that it may be more predictable than we...

Why Strait of Hormuz crisis could quietly raise prices around the world

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has drawn attention mainly because of rising oil and petrol prices. But focusing only on fuel misses a...

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Making sense of student loan repayment options

Student loans can feel like a heavy weight, especially when it’s time to start repaying them. If you’re like millions of others who took out...

Antarctica’s ice anchors melting away faster than ever

In a significant discovery, scientists have found that Antarctica's natural ice anchors, essential in holding back the continent's land ice from sliding into the...

This low-cost device can measure air pollution anywhere

An MIT research team is rolling out an open-source version of a low-cost, mobile pollution detector that could enable people to track air quality more widely.

What drives Yellowstone’s massive elk migrations

Yellowstone’s migrating elk use climate cues, like melting snow and greening grasses, to decide when to migrate. Every spring, tens of thousands of elk follow...

Will Twitter survive Elon Musk?

Will Twitter survive Musk’s tumultuous takeover? Will concerns about brand safety scare off advertisers?
Beaches near Hiroshima littered with glassy beads from atomic bomb blast 75 years ago

Beaches near Hiroshima littered with glassy beads from atomic bomb blast 75 years ago

Beaches around the Japanese city of Hiroshima are littered with minuscule glassy beads formed from debris melted by the atomic bomb blast that devastated...

15-second ads may be the secret to beating junk food cravings

A new study from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia suggests that very short health advertisements could help people resist junk food cravings and...

New way to measure flying baseballs

As the Major League Baseball season gets underway, a burning question for many fans of the third most popular sport in the United States...