NASA has an office dealing with asteroids that might hit Earth. But we still...
There are thousands of asteroids and comets that orbit the sun, traveling in the same cosmic neighborhood as Earth.NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Officer Lindley Johnson and Near Earth Object...
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Can coffee become the world’s first 100 percent sustainable agricultural...
Growing coffee often leads to deforestation — but it doesn’t have to be that way.A new initiative called the Sustainable Coffee Challenge aims to change the way the coffee industry operates. Peter...
View ArticleThe walls in Van Gogh’s iconic 'The Bedroom' were never meant to be blue
The Art Institute of Chicago recently made a surprising discovery about Van Gogh’s iconic painting, “The Bedroom.” The walls in the room, which look blue to us now, were actually purple when Van Gogh...
View ArticleCalifornia's almond farmers depend on beekeepers — and billions of bees
The Central Valley of California has the perfect climate for almond trees, but they need a lot of help. So, every year, the valley hosts the largest controlled pollination in the world.There are about...
View ArticleA US trade complaint may hinder India's plan for a homegrown solar industry
In a surprising ruling that runs counter to the agreements made at the Paris Climate Summit, the World Trade Organization has said that India may not protect local production of solar energy cells.The...
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The gross origins of a $100 cup of coffee
BANGKOK, Thailand — Perhaps you’ve heard of “kopi luwak,” the world’s priciest coffee. And perhaps you know its main claim to notoriety: The drink is brewed from beans swallowed and excreted by civets,...
View ArticleHow police license plate readers can invade your privacy
Cyrus Farivar, by his own admission, has an obsession. He’s obsessed with a technology that most people don’t even know exists: license plate readers.“I first learned about them in around 2012 or 2013,...
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The Great Salt Lake has a pretty awesome earthen spiral
When artist Robert Smithson was looking for a location to create his latest earthwork in the late 1960s, he hoped to find a place with red water. He came upon Rozel Point, a remote area in the north...
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A Boston museum is showing what the future of fashion might look like
When people imagine the future, they often picture flying cars and space colonies — a world that’s virtually unrecognizable. But what do you picture when you imagine the future of fashion?Well, thanks...
View ArticleIf the US wants to fix its infrastructure problem, it'll have to cut through...
In the United States, bigger is better. America goes stronger, faster and further than everyone else. Right?Wrong.You don't need to look hard to see America's infrastructure is crumbling. Look no...
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How do you celebrate Holi in the middle of a drought?
Today is Holi, the festival that Indian communities around the world celebrate to mark the beginning of spring. Mumbai-based reporter Chhavi Sachdev wrote this essay after celebrating a "dry" Holi this...
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What the man who inspired Jurassic Park's science thinks about the future of...
If you’ve watched the original Jurassic Park movie, you’ll remember this scene of a cartoon character — “Mr. DNA” — explaining how the film’s scientists were able to extract dinosaur blood from an...
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In Antarctica, displaced penguins may be a sign of climate change
When researchers who study Adelie penguins in Antarctica returned to their study site to find most of the birds gone, the event made headlines. But the headlines were mostly wrong, according to the...
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Shell Oil faces a lawsuit in the UK over oil spills in Nigeria
In parts of Nigeria, signs abound warning residents not to drink, swim or fish in the local waterways. Other signs warn residents to avoid drinking their own well water.Countless oil spills over...
View ArticleWhat exactly is processed cheese, anyway?
The words “processed cheese” probably conjure visions of cellophane-wrapped slices from lunchbox days. But maybe expand your mind, just a bit.According to Lloyd Metzger, a dairy scientist at South...
View Article'Good' bacteria could save amphibians hit by fungal diseases
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts may have found a tool to combat the fungal diseases that are killing millions of frogs, bats and snakes around the world.The researchers discovered that...
View ArticleReal estate is booming in south Florida, even as sea level rise becomes a...
Sea level rise is one of the most obvious and ominous effects of global warming, which makes living in low-lying coastal areas increasingly risky. Yet some of the very places that will be most affected...
View ArticleEnvironmentalists fear Americans will ruin Cuba's biodiversity
As Cuba-US relations thaw, environmentalists on both sides of the Florida Straits are worried about how an influx of American tourists may impact ecosystems that have been relatively protected up until...
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Florence tackles the problem of grafitti with 'playful, persuasive' technology
Graffiti will probably never go away. It’s sprayed over, scrubbed, erased. But it comes back again and again.So how do you defeat graffiti when you don't want it? Well, considering that graffiti comes...
View ArticleScientists hail latest quantum computer as 'holy grail' of computing
Engineers and computer scientists are continually updating computers, making them faster, more powerful.But a group of researchers have come up with new type of a quantum computer. It’s a device that...
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