The New Politics of Climate Change
The dust is settling on the 2018 midterms—and no plan to fight global warming has emerged unscathed.
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Projects
Life Up Close
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Rachel Suggs Killer Tulips Hiding in Plain Sight
Thanks to the compounds used to protect precious flowers, antifungal resistance is here—and it could be just as dangerous to humans as antibiotic resistance.
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Fernando Vergara / AP Science Is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck
Despite vast increases in the time and money spent on research, progress is barely keeping pace with the past. What went wrong?
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The Photograph That Changed How We See the World
The Apollo 8 astronauts tell the life-changing story behind Earthrise.
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Reuters A Bold New Strategy for Stopping the Rise of Superbugs
Scientists have pinpointed a molecule that accelerates the evolution of drug-resistant microbes. Now they’re trying to find a way to block it.
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M. Kornmesser / ESO A Surprise Discovery Around a Lonely Star
A planet more than three times the mass of Earth may be orbiting in a star system long thought to be barren.
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Nikola Solic / Reuters The Myth Of the Traumatized Neanderthal
Contrary to popular belief, they weren’t exceptionally prone to head injuries, and certainly no more so than early humans.
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Wenjia Tang The Media Barely Covered One of the Worst Storms to Hit U.S. Soil
Weeks ago, Super Typhoon Yutu devastated the Northern Mariana Islands, which are home to tens of thousands of Americans. Mainland outlets paid little attention.
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Stephen Lam / Reuters The Simple Reason That Humans Can’t Control Wildfires
“The fire, to me—it’s like an ocean. It’s so strong that we don’t really stand a chance of doing much to it.”
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Vitoony35 / Shutterstock What Vets Think of ‘23andMe for Dogs’
More and more companies are selling DNA-test kits for pets.
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Eric Thayer / Reuters The Worst Is Yet to Come for California’s Wildfires
Two fires have left 31 people dead in the state. But even insurance companies think blazes will be bigger in just a few decades.
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Joe McKendry The Heart Can Keep Beating After Death
A very short book excerpt
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Kathy Willens / AP Is Gender Written Into Your Skeleton?
The study of human bones complicates a strict binary definition of sex.
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AI Project / Reuters The 19th-Century Origins of Climate Science
How politics and azaleas gave rise to a modern understanding of the environment
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NASA / Roscosmos If Everyone Left the International Space Station
A recent launch failure presented an unsettling possibility for humankind’s home above Earth.
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Alex Gallardo / AP Trump's Space Force Faces an Uncertain Fate
Congressional lawmakers, including Republicans, were skeptical of the idea long before the midterms.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Trump’s Interference With Science Is Unprecedented
Experts say that key EPA proposals would meddle with the research process and endanger decades of protective health rules.
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Julia Gunther / Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine There May Be More Worlds With Water Than We Think
H2O is older than the sun, and could play a key role in helping planets grow.
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Natural History Museum of Denmark The Extremely Fast Peopling of the Americas
Two genetic studies show how the first Native Americans spread through their new continent with incredible speed.
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J. David Ake / AP The Republican Space Fans Exiting the House
The next Congress will be missing a few longtime advocates of exploration.
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Tami Chappell How a Landlocked Aquarium Gets Its Seawater
In the 1930s, saltwater was shipped by rail. Since then, things have gotten more high-tech.
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP The GOP Just Lost Its Most Important Climate Moderates
Almost 20 Republican House members who seemed to care about climate change failed to win reelection.
