In the historical imagination, astronomers look through telescopes, and photonic wisdom pours in at the speed of light. Taking what they can get, they passively receive information about far-off stars and planets. These objects are fixed, and their conditions cannot be tweaked. But that’s not how all astronomy works. Planetary and exoplanetary scientists, for instance, […]

Still, only 62 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and the nation’s medical infrastructure is dangerously frayed two years into the pandemic as hospitals contend with staff shortages fueled by burnout and early retirements. Public health experts warned that the most severe disruptions could still be ahead. Past surges of the coronavirus have been regional, […]

Executives of some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell — are set to appear before a congressional committee Thursday to address accusations that the industry spent millions of dollars to wage a decades-long disinformation campaign to cast doubt on the science of climate change and to […]

Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is teaming up with other firms to build a space station in Earth orbit. The group announced its plans on Monday, revealing the latest concept for a privately built orbital outpost that could replace or complement the International Space Station. The influx […]

Our distant primate relative, the Indri indri, is a critically endangered species of lemur found only in Madagascar. These black-and-white primates are the weight of a small dog and look like a cross between a cat and a koala. And they sound — depending on whom you ask — like the shriek of a balloon […]

In the wild, a worm blob looks like any other mud ball lolling around the bottom of a pond. But if you poke an unassuming worm blob, it will respond in a way a mud ball never would, wriggling out into a noodly shape that a Pastafarian might mistake for something divine. This is how […]

TAN-AWAN, Philippines — In the predawn light, Lorene de Guzman paddles out to sea in his tiny wooden outrigger to hand-feed the giants living in the water. One of the behemoths, a whale shark known as 180, swims up, its enormous mouth gliding across the surface of the still ocean. “Where have you been?” Mr. […]

Col. Wang Yaping is a pilot in the People’s Liberation Army’s Air Force. She is a space veteran, now making her second trip into orbit. She is set in the coming weeks to be the first Chinese woman to walk in space as China’s space station glides around Earth at 17,100 miles per hour. And […]

NASA set dates on Friday for its giant rocket to launch a spacecraft to the moon and back, beginning in mid-February next year. No, for real this time. In a news conference, officials from the space agency announced a two-week period beginning Feb. 12 for a flight — without astronauts aboard — of the Space […]

BETHESDA, Md. — Chinese firms are collecting genetic data from around the world, part of an effort by the Chinese government and companies to develop the world’s largest bio-database, American intelligence officials reported on Friday. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center said in a new paper that the United States needed to better secure critical […]