Category Science

February 5, 2025 4 min read Elon Musk Can Find His $2-Trillion Federal Spending Cut in Nuclear Weapons DOGE’s Elon Musk should turn his $2-trillion hatchet to wasteful and perilous U.S. nuclear weapons modernization plans By Dan Vergano edited by…

A little after 6:25 am on November 8, 2018, a 911 dispatcher received the first report of a fire near the Poe Dam in northern California. Nineteen minutes later firefighters caught sight of what would become known as the Camp…

The US National Science Foundation (NSF), a major funder of basic academic research, announced yesterday that it has reopened a website that distributes money from research grants to scientists. The move comes after a week of confusion and frustration for…

Emmy Noether’s theorem about symmetry is still contributing to modern physics Shutterstock/okanakdeniz The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or mathematician to tell you about fascinating…

February 4, 2025 4 min read Mathematicians Solve Infamous ‘Moving Sofa Problem’ What’s the largest couch that can turn a corner? After 58 years, we finally know By Jack Murtagh edited by Jeanna Bryner For those who have wrestled a…

Air pollution can have a cooling effect on the climate Cheunghyo/Getty Images James Hansen, the climate scientist best known for alerting the US Congress to global warming in the 1980s, has redoubled his warnings that we are underestimating the climate…

As human beings, we are all keepers of a vast menagerie. Every surface of our bodies, inside and out, is teeming with microorganisms. We have microbiomes on our skin, in our mouths and other orifices and – especially – in…

February 4, 2025 2 min read Trump EPA Spending Freeze Continues despite Court Orders Two judges have ordered the Trump administration to lift a freeze on spending, including at the Environmental Protection Agency. But nonprofits and states still can’t get…

A view of two large canyons on the moon radiating from the Schrödinger basin NASASVSErnie T. Wright A vast impact crater near the moon’s south pole was formed by an asteroid moving at more than a kilometre a second, releasing…

Traders on Wall Street show how institutions can take big risks Spencer Platt/Getty Images The Gambling AnimalGlenn Harrison and Don Ross (Profile Books) Insights into animal evolution used to come from studying a creature’s evolutionary relationships to its closest relatives.…