A research team was combing the coastline of southwest Portugal in 2019 in search of signs of how its ecosystem had changed over time. They stumbled upon an astonishing and unexpected scene: bees that had been mummified in subterranean sarcophagi for nearly 3,000 years. An unlikely series of events had conspired to preserve this helpless […]
Johannes Fritz, a maverick Austrian biologist, needed to come up with a plan, again, if he was going to prevent his rare and beloved birds from going extinct. To survive the European winter, the northern bald ibis — which had once disappeared entirely from the wild on the continent — needs to migrate south for […]
Pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, are an evolutionary mystery. They appear in the fossil record fully formed, some with 33-foot wingspans, and there is very little evidence of the ancestors that came before them. A new fossil, described Wednesday in the journal Nature, provides an elusive glimpse of a group of […]
After years of litigation to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the deadly abuse of prescription painkillers, payments from what could amount to more than $50 billion in court settlements have started to flow to states and communities to address the nation’s continuing opioid crisis. But though the payments come with stacks of guidance outlining […]
The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it would pause a bankruptcy deal for Purdue Pharma that would give billions of dollars to those harmed by the opioid epidemic in exchange for shielding members of the wealthy Sackler family from additional opioid-related lawsuits. The settlement involving Purdue, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, touches […]
If you find that the blistering, unrelenting heat is making you anxious and irritable, even depressed, it’s not all in your head. Soaring temperatures can damage not just the body but also the mind. As heat waves become more intense, more frequent and longer, it has become increasingly important to address the impact on mental […]
Volcanic eruptions set off a mass extinction 252 million years ago that scientists call “the Great Dying.” The ensuing climate change and acid rain hit life in the oceans hard, with less than 5 percent of marine species making it out alive. But that event gave strange new life-forms the opportunity to evolve, including a […]
On the same day George Floyd was murdered by a police officer on a Minneapolis street — Memorial Day, 2020 — Christian Cooper was searching for songbirds in Central Park. Mr. Cooper, who is Black, would be vaulted to fame after a run-in with a white woman who called the police and falsely claimed he […]
The last time there was a major slowdown in the mighty network of ocean currents that shapes the climate around the North Atlantic, it seems to have plunged Europe into a deep cold for over a millennium. That was roughly 12,800 years ago, when not many people were around to experience it. But in recent […]
At her annual visit, the patient’s doctor asks if she plans to continue having regular mammograms to screen for breast cancer, and then reminds her that it’s been almost 10 years since her last colonoscopy. She’s 76. Hmmm. The patient’s age alone may be an argument against further mammogram appointments. The independent and influential U.S. […]
