Science
NASA, IBM launch new AI model for studying the moon
NASA and IBM have developed an AI model to help sift through the mountains of data the agency has gathered about the moon.
An Overdue Trash Bill Left This Alabama Woman in Handcuffs. She’s Not Alone.
DOUBLE SPRINGS, Ala.—As 59-year-old Pam Benton sat handcuffed to a cold bench inside the Winston County Courthouse, shame flooded over her. All she could think about, she later ex…
Formal Repeal of Roadless Rule Directly Threatens Midwest Wilderness
Michigan’s Norwich Plains is a stretch of unbroken wilderness in the state’s Upper Peninsula dominated by northern hardwood forest, with sugar maples and old-growth aspens that pr…
Maryland Under Pressure as Local Moratoriums Supercharge Opposition to Data Centers
More than 60 advocacy groups from across Maryland are urging leaders in Annapolis to put a temporary pause on new data center proposals until their impacts on the environment and …
How Marmots, OnlyFans and a Meme Coin Generated Big Bucks for Wildlife Biology
From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering with Emily Renkey from the Marmot Project. You may hav…
As antibiotic resistance grows, researchers turn to copper to fight infections
When bacteria invade the urinary tract, the body has its own arsenal for fighting back. Among those weapons is an unlikely tool: copper. Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Ve…
Q&A: The origin of 'OnlyMarms' and what made it a roaring success
The story of Dan Blumstein's decision to share videos of marmots from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory field study on an OnlyFans account called OnlyMarms has captured att…
Bridging interfacial water structure and reactivity in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution at TiO₂ interfaces
Hydrogen (H2) evolution via photocatalytic water splitting is an environmentally friendly and sustainable technology for solar-to-chemical energy conversion. Although interfacial …
How one RNA nucleotide switch activates fluorescent dyes
RhoBAST is a tiny RNA molecule that activates fluorescent dyes, enabling researchers to track RNA molecules in living cells with super-resolution. An international collaboration, …
How big can the universe's first starbursts get?
As our telescopes have improved and we've been able to peer farther back in time, we've begun finding more fascinating features of the universe. But one thing we haven't found for…
Smart, self-healing packaging uses AI to detect food spoilage in real time
Packaging already tells us where food comes from, when it was made, what's in it and how many calories it contains. But researchers see a future where packaging can "see," in real…
Court Rules Against Trump Order to Keep Costly Michigan Coal Plant Running
A federal appeals court has struck down the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers to require a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to remain open, ruling that the U.S. Dep…
Rocket Lab protests NASA's decision to award Blue Origin $700 million Mars orbiter contract
Rocket Lab has filed a protest against NASA's decision to award Blue Origin a $700 million Mars orbiter contract, saying it's inconsistent with the eligibility rules laid out by C…
25 Years After 9/11, the Health Toll Is Still Unfolding
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a trove of documents this week that shed new light on the air quality around the World Trade Center after the September 11 terrorist at…
New genome study rewrites the early history of grasses, the world's most important plant family
An international team of scientists, including Donald Danforth Plant Science Center member emerita Elizabeth "Toby" Kellogg, Ph.D., has produced a chromosome-level genome assembly…
AI helps find hidden human proteins and reveals what they do
New research shows how artificial intelligence, combined with advanced experimental science, can help find "hidden" and unexplored proteins in the human body and reveal what they …
Emerging SARS-CoV-2 sublineage RE.2.2 displays distinct structural features
Researchers from the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS) have characterized the structural and functional properties of the emerging SARS-CoV-2 su…
Compost microbe yields enzyme that tackles polyurethane foam and nylon
Researchers from Aarhus University and the Danish Technological Institute have taken a new approach in the search for enzymes capable of breaking down some of the most difficult t…
I've chased the 'false dawn' for years — this is the week to find and photograph it
September's new moon opens a dark window for seeing zodiacal light, the ghostly cone of interplanetary dust that rises above the eastern horizon before dawn.
The Trump Administration Wants to Fast-Track Arctic Drilling
The Trump administration is moving to accelerate oil and gas drilling across the Western Arctic with a new proposal that would slash environmental review and public input. The pr…
10,000 years of wheat and barley selection reveal shared climate-adaptation genes
Research teams from INRAE, the University of Clermont Auvergne and the CNRS have reconstructed 10 ancient genomes (paleogenomes) that are the common ancestors of 84 botanical spec…
A star is exploding 45 million light-years away — here's how you can see it
The newly discovered Type Ia supernova SN 2026aaiv in NGC 7331 offers amateur astronomers and astrophotographers a rare opportunity to observe and image an exploding star before i…
Help Refine Data from Space Telescopes with Artifact InSPECtor
How do scientists studying space with data from a telescope hundreds of thousands of miles away know that what they are seeing is real? A new NASA project, Artifact InSPECtor, inv…
Bite, buzz, release: How bees make flowers give up their pollen
Life is not always easy for a bee: Not all plants place their pollen outside. Some flowers have to be set to vibrating before the pollen can get out of their tube-like stamens. Ce…