Science
New Japanese Rocket Is Destroyed During First Test Flight to Space

Japan aims to build its own rockets and maintain an independent ability to carry payloads to orbit. The country’s current active rocket, H-IIA, is scheduled to complete additional flights in the coming year. The H3 rocket, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is meant to replace that rocket and bolster Japan’s domestic spaceflight capabilities. But Japan […]

Updated: Mar 7, 2023
Nations Agree on Language for Historic Treaty to Protect Ocean Life

After two decades of planning and talks that culminated in a grueling race over the past few days in New York, a significant majority of nations agreed on language for a historic United Nations treaty that would protect ocean biodiversity. As marine life faces threats from climate change, overfishing, the possibility of seabed mining and […]

Updated: Mar 5, 2023
In Chernobyl’s Stray Dogs, Scientists Look for Genetic Effects of Radiation

The project is a collaboration among scientists in the United States, Ukraine and Poland, as well as the Clean Futures Fund, a nonprofit based in the United States that works in Chernobyl. The nonprofit, which was established in 2016, began as an effort to provide health care and support to the power plant employees, who still […]

Updated: Mar 3, 2023
Jupiter and Venus, SpaceX and Relativity: March Space News

Get ready for some roaring new rockets in March. As many as three launchers that have never traveled to space could try to reach orbit in the coming month. Relativity Space, an American company, may be the first to fly. Its Terran 1 rocket is scheduled to lift off as early as March 8 from […]

Updated: Mar 1, 2023
Turkey’s Earthquake Zone Is a Lot Like the One in California. Here’s What That Means.

The scientists studying the powerful earthquakes that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria this month may bring new insights to a seismic zone that is strikingly similar: the San Andreas Fault in California. The earthquake zones have much in common, with one long, major fault and scores of smaller, secondary ones. Using ground-based and satellite […]

Updated: Feb 27, 2023
The Salton Sea, an Accident of History, Faces a New Water Crisis

BRAWLEY, Calif. — The drought crisis on the Colorado River looms large in California’s Imperial Valley, which produces much of the nation’s lettuce, broccoli and other crops, and now faces water cuts. But those cuts will also be bad news for the environmental and ecological disaster unfolding just to the north, at the shallow, shimmering […]

Updated: Feb 25, 2023
Global Declines in Maternal Mortality Have Stalled

Although maternal mortality rates declined worldwide from 2000 to 2020, almost 800 women still die of pregnancy-related complications every day, according to a grim report issued Wednesday by the World Health Organization and other agencies of the United Nations. Despite early improvements in maternal health during the 20-year period, progress has stalled in many regions, […]

Updated: Feb 23, 2023
Cocaine Bear, Meet Cannabis Raccoon and McFlurry Skunk

In September 1985, the authorities discovered the body of Andrew Thornton, a drug smuggler, in a Tennessee backyard. He had a bag full of cocaine, a failed parachute and the key to a small airplane, which turned up at a crash site about 60 miles away. Investigators spent months searching for the rest of Mr. […]

Updated: Feb 21, 2023
Helping Stroke Patients Regain Movement in Their Hands

Heather Rendulic was 23 when she suffered a stroke that disabled her left side. Ten years later, her left arm and hand remain so impaired that she cannot tie her shoes, type with two hands or cut her own food. But for an extraordinary month, while participating in an innovative study, she suddenly was able […]

Updated: Feb 21, 2023
Genetically Modified Trees Planted in U.S. Forest for First Time

On Monday, in a low-lying tract of southern Georgia’s pine belt, a half-dozen workers planted row upon row of twig-like poplar trees. These weren’t just any trees, though: Some of the seedlings being nestled into the soggy soil had been genetically engineered to grow wood at turbocharged rates while slurping up carbon dioxide from the […]

Updated: Feb 16, 2023