Science

2017 is on track to be a record-setting year for massive natural disasters in the U.S.

By Laura Santhanam

So far, 2017 has produced 15 major U.S. natural disasters and shows no sign of slowing down. Here's a look at these disasters by the numbers.

These conservatives are making a case for clean energy

By Rashmi Shivni, Teresa Carey

When President Donald Trump announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, it was a major blow to the renewable energy industry because of the growing market in America. Now the Trump administration is…

A mother uses a similar tone with babies, no matter the language

By Fedor Kossakovski

Mothers across languages change the timbre of their voice in similar ways when they speak to babies, Princeton University neuroscientists reported today.

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.

How a brain gets hooked on opioids

By Nsikan Akpan, Julia Griffin

Here is the neuroscience behind how opioids overtake the human brain.

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.

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…

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…

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.

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.