Defenses against digital snoopers keep getting stronger. Encryption is what keeps communications safe when you use Signal and other messaging apps, make online financial transactions, buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and trust that private information in your Apple iPhone will stay private. While a variety of end-to-end encryption techniques seek to protect the flows […]
Sandra Herrera was getting dressed on Sunday morning when the ground started shaking. She felt two big jolts and heard a low rumbling. “I thought it could be the Big One,” said Ms. Herrera, 22, referring to the long-feared earthquake in California. It was not. Still, the 4.1-magnitude earthquake that rattled parts of Southern California, […]
A third study, begun about 30 years ago and still ongoing, looks at dietary factors besides salt, like animal protein, that contribute to high blood pressure. “I remember there being criticism that he was an older man in his 70s, and could he complete the five years of the project,” Dr. Philip Greenland, a professor […]
The police had warned Xie Yang, a human rights lawyer, not to go to Shanghai to visit the mother of a dissident. He went to the airport anyway. His phone’s health code app — a digital pass indicating possible exposure to the coronavirus — was green, which meant he could travel. His home city, Changsha, […]
In recent days, headlines about a “stealth” Omicron variant have conjured the notion that a villainous new form of the coronavirus is secretly creating a disastrous new wave of Covid. That scenario is highly unlikely, scientists say. But the new variant, which goes by the scientific name BA.2 and is one of three branches of […]
In March 2019, scientists studying whales near Southwestern Australia stumbled upon a supersize spectacle that few had seen before — a pod of orcas viciously attacking a blue whale. Over a dozen orcas surrounded the mighty animal. They had already bitten off its dorsal fin, and the animal was unable to evade the fast and […]
WASHINGTON — A judge’s decision this week to invalidate the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation’s history, on grounds that the government had failed to take climate change into consideration, shows that regulatory decisions that disregard global warming are increasingly vulnerable to legal challenges, analysts said Friday. Judge Rudolph Contreras of […]
WASHINGTON — John Kerry, President Biden’s global climate envoy, warned nations Thursday that the world is “not on a good track” to meet its goal of pivoting away from fossil fuels in order to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change. At a virtual meeting of the world’s most polluting countries — including China, […]
There’s no single gene that determines dog size, according to Dr. Ostrander, a dog genomics expert at the National Institutes of Health. There are about 25. She and other scientists found the first known dog size gene, and one of the most significant, in 2007. It’s called IGF1. The importance of the gene has been […]
After a frenetic few weeks when the Omicron variant of the coronavirus seemed to infect everyone, including the vaccinated and boosted, the United States is finally seeing encouraging signs. As cases decline in some parts of the country, many have begun to hope that this surge is the last big battle with the virus — […]
