Tree-mounted sensors and new satellites promise a way to detect wildfires before they get out of hand—but no early detection method is foolproof.

In the face of seabeds becoming valuable real estate and corroding bombs polluting the oceans, teams are turning to technology to clean up this dangerous and expensive problem.

Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory.

Continuing the Artemis program and using its planned lunar space station as a staging post would be a more energy efficient but slower way to reach Mars, and it’s unlikely to be Elon Musk’s preference.

Eating organic is normally associated with tote-wielding liberals, but RFK Jr. is shifting the politics of food in unusual ways.

Clinical trials may have to be scrapped, research applications will be pushed back, and unpaid researchers will quickly leave the sector—even if the Trump administration’s funding pause is only temporary.

During his confirmation hearings this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would promote vaccines as HHS secretary, despite a long history of promoting anti-vax positions.

Air traffic controllers asked Flight 5342 to switch runways when coming in to land. Black box recordings from the jet and the military helicopter it collided with will help reveal whether this contributed to the accident.

Bringing forward the return of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would leave just a single astronaut operating the US portion of the International Space Station.

A White House memo ordered a halt to federal assistance and a review to align spending with Donald Trump’s priorities. Many legal experts say the order is unconstitutional.

The FDA recently approved a bioengineered blood vessel, which becomes part of a patient’s body over time. It’s designed to help treat victims of traumatic injuries.

Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab.

You might assume that tech-savvy people are the most open to using AI, but research suggests it's actually those who are least familiar with it.

The source of more than half of all wildfires in the Western US remains unknown, so the US Forest Service has teamed up with computer scientists to create tools that can find answers.

High cholesterol is considered 240 mg/dL. The man’s was over 1,000 mg/dL.

Our physics expert picks his top-five equations, plus a scheme to supply US power needs with a bucket of baseballs. Thanks, Einstein!

When a US research lab accidentally created a sticky, web-like substance, it turned to Peter Parker and comic-book lore for inspiration on what to do next.

H5N1 vaccines have been previously licensed, and millions are in the national stockpile. But even with the news of the country’s first human death due to bird flu, vaccination isn’t yet recommended.

Founded by crypto guru Jed McCaleb, Vast Space will run two missions to the International Space Station and aims to launch its first space station, Haven-1, by the end of 2025.

The exit will cut a huge chunk from the World Health Organization’s budget, but the short-term financial gain for the US could come at the cost of disease outbreaks flaring up across the world.

The new president’s orders will take the US out of the Paris Agreement, encourage the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and undo Biden-era policies.

Non-native grasses and eucalyptus trees brought to California centuries ago for agriculture and landscaping have reshaped the state’s fire dynamics.

To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source.

Firefighting planes are dumping water from the ocean on the Los Angeles fires, but using saltwater is typically a last resort.

Essential oils, detox regimens, parasite cleanses, and raw milk have entered the disaster economy.

The profit margin on crypto mining is all about the physics of computers and energy conversion.

Alignments of five or more planets are rare—there will be two more featuring five or more planets this year, but after that the next won’t happen until 2040.

What may be the first commercially available book saved in DNA is the latest example of how consumers might use molecular data storage.

New photos of Mercury taken during the joint European and Japanese BepiColombo mission reveal fascinating details of the small rocky planet.

Calculating air pollution from wildfires and other events has become more complicated. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily more accurate.

After the devastation of the Los Angeles fires, officials are ready to rebuild. But defending against future fires requires thinking about more than buildings.

The space agency’s Spinoff project displays the countless everyday technologies that were spurred by space-related research.

Signals from the global navigation satellite system can be jammed and spoofed, so a Google spinout is working on an alternative positioning and navigation system that uses the Earth’s magnetic field.

Melted plastic pipes and drastic water-pressure drops are potentially leaching toxic chemicals and contaminants into local supplies. Multiple water authorities in north Los Angeles have issued Do Not Drink notices.

Now that Novo Nordisk is the world’s weight-loss juggernaut, will it have to betray its first patients—type 1 diabetics?

Three exotic new species of superconductivity were spotted last year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

The 1,100-pound mystery object landed in Kenya at the end of December. Experts are still baffled.

In early January, soil moisture in much of Southern California was in the bottom 2 percent of historical records.

The arrival of La Niña is starving California of rain, and more high Santa Ana winds could be on the way.

On January 13, Atlas C/2024 G3 will reach its closest point to the sun.