Oct 11 Why MacArthur ‘genius’ Kate Orff says designing for nature can protect our cities By Julia Griffin Twenty-five years ago, Kate Orff didn’t know what landscape architecture was. Today, her approach to promoting the environment in urban design earned her a 2017 MacArthur “Genius” grant. Continue reading
Oct 09 How a brain gets hooked on opioids By Nsikan Akpan, Julia Griffin Here is the neuroscience behind how opioids overtake the human brain. Continue reading
Oct 06 Human activity can trigger earthquakes, but how many? This number might surprise you By Rashmi Shivni Earthquakes can now be caused by people thanks to fracking, drilling and wastewater disposal. A new database shows how common these human-made earthquakes are. Continue reading
Oct 05 The ongoing fight over the Rover pipeline, explained By Courtney Norris President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt have vowed to boost domestic energy production by dismantling federal regulations on things like drilling, but environmental agencies in both blue and red states have pushed back in the months… Continue reading
Oct 05 U.S. endured a record fire season. What could be done differently? By Sophie Quinton, Stateline As the wildfire season lengthens and the fires become larger and more dangerous — a trend driven by a number of factors, including climate change — both state and federal natural resource departments are spending more time and money on… Continue reading
Oct 04 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to ‘cool’ 3D pictures of bioarchitecture By Nsikan Akpan Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson have won the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a way to image biomolecules at cold temperatures. Continue reading
Oct 03 LIGO gravitational wave discoverers win 2017 Nobel Prize in physics By Nsikan Akpan Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne have won the 2017 Nobel Prize for physics for leading the projects that discovered gravitational waves and proved an century-old Einstein theory. Continue reading
Oct 02 Three Americans win 2017 Nobel Prize in medicine for research on circadian clocks By Nsikan Akpan Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for their research into what controls circadian rhythms. Continue reading
Sep 30 Deadly West Nile virus cases are spiking in LA. The first line of defense: chickens By Usha Lee McFarling, STAT More than six dozen sentinel chickens, living in coops dotted around Los Angeles, make up one of the first lines of defense in this sprawling county’s fight against West Nile virus. Continue reading
Sep 30 What a North Korea hydrogen bomb would do to the Pacific Ocean and space stations By Nsikan Akpan Here’s a closer look at what a hydrogen bomb could mean for sea creatures, fisheries, astronauts and even Google Earth. Continue reading