The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.
In May 2014, NASA announced at a press conference that a portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appeared to have reached a point of irreversible retreat. Glaciers flowing toward the…
The Chernobyl exclusion zone may be off-limits to humans, but ever since the Unit Four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded nearly 40 years ago, other forms of life have not only moved in but survived, adapted, and appeared…
Humans have probably shared their homes with dogs ever since they first settled. So it could be argued that there is no such thing as “human society” without including animals as part of it.
Our long shared history with dogs has even been…
Astonishingly, earthquakes shake the US state of California around 10,000 times a year, on average – that’s about once every hour.
California’s official nickname is the Golden State, harking back to the mid-19th-century gold rush that saw…
Most of us have the odd bad dream. But if you’re regularly waking in a cold sweat, you might be wondering: is it just stress, or something more serious?
Some recent research has made headlines by linking frequent nightmares to an increased risk…
The waste left over from spent fossil fuel may contain a treasure trove of rare-earth elements worth billions of dollars.
In a 2024 paper, geologists calculated that the waste ash from coal burnt in fossil fuel power plants may contain as much…
