CIA believes Covid-19 likely caused by lab leak, NBC News reports
“CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
Trump’s EPA Pick Flunks Basic Science Quiz at Confirmation Hearing
Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency struggled to answer straightforward questions about science. At his confirmation hearing on Thursday, former Rep. Lee Zeldin faced scrutiny of his limited environmental experience. For one senator, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, this took the form of a science pop quiz—asking, in his words, “really basic no-tricks questions […]
Bezos’ Blue Origin stands down on debut launch of New Glenn rocket
A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket stands ready for its inaugural launch at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., January 11, 2025. Joe Skipper | Reuters Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Monday called off the inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket following last-minute issues on the vehicle, in a blow […]
The science behind L’Oréals new skincare gadget
Las Vegas is punishingly dry. The arid winter air means I woke up on Day 3 of CES 2025 with a nosebleed, chapped lips, and ashy legs. This in spite of the fact I slathered myself with two pumps of a fermented bean essence, eye cream, moisturizer, and a lip mask. Staring at my face […]
How Wildfire Smoke Affects Your Health—and How You Can Protect Yourself
As a series of massive fires continues to blaze through the Los Angeles area, blanketing neighborhoods with smoke and forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes, air quality remains unhealthy throughout many parts of the county. Wildfire smoke is a mixture of water vapor, gases, and microscopic particles known as particulate matter. The smallest […]
New Superconductive Materials Have Just Been Discovered
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 2024, superconductivity—the flow of electric current with zero resistance—was discovered in three distinct materials. Two instances stretch the textbook understanding of the phenomenon. The third shreds it completely. “It’s an extremely unusual form of superconductivity that a lot of people would have said is […]
Author lived underground for 10 days to study sleep, happiness, health
On her quest to better understand how factors like when we eat and how much sunlight we get affect our ability to feel rested, happy and balanced, Lynne Peeples went 50 feet below ground for 10 days. Peeples, a science journalist and author of “The Inner Clock: Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms,” found […]
The Brightest Comet of 2025 Is Coming. Here’s How You Can See It Shine
Hot on the tail of the Quadrantids meteor shower, another spectacle in the sky is about to arrive: comet Atlas C/2024 G3, which will reach perihelion—the point of its orbit closest to the sun—on January 13. On the same day, we will also see it at its closest point to Earth, and it could become […]
These Maps Show Just How Dry Southern California Is Right Now
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Dry conditions across Southern California in early January 2025 set the stage for a series of deadly wind-driven wildfires that burned thousands of homes and other structures in the Los Angeles area. Ming Pana hydrologist at the University of California-San Diego’s Center for […]
Even Trump Can’t Stop America’s Green Transition, Says Biden’s Top Climate Adviser
The second is whether we’re continuing to deal more and more people into the transformation. We’ve got over 100,000 farmers and ranchers that are now taking on climate-smart agricultural practices. Will that climate action, that distributed climate action, continue to expand? The last thing is how good are we at building the stuff we need […]