Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
The 2004 tsunami killed hundreds of thousands. Are we better prepared now?
Twenty years after the deadliest wave in recorded history, most oceans have warning systems and communities have learned how best to escape the danger.
- Artificial Intelligence
Generative AI is an energy hog. Is the tech worth the environmental cost?
Generative AI and the hype around it has rung in excitement and alarm bells this year. Here’s how to consider climate, energy and AI's intersection.
- Climate
Climate change made 2024 the hottest year on record. The heat was deadly
Heat waves fueled by climate change killed scores of people and upended daily life. Here are some of those stories.
- Plants
Meet a scientist tracking cactus poaching in the Atacama Desert
Botanist Pablo Guerrero has been visiting Atacama cacti all his life. They’re not adapting well to a drier climate, booming mining and plant collection.
- Animals
Climate stress may undermine male spiders’ romantic gift giving
Even spider love lives show an effect of climate uncertainty: Stressed males may offer a bit of silk-wrapped junk rather than a tasty insect treat.
- Ecosystems
New videos reveal the hidden lives of Andean bears
The footage give clues to the range of plants the bears eat and how they mate, information important for conservation.
- Climate
An unexpected ice collapse hints at worrying changes on the Antarctic coast
The Conger Ice Shelf disintegrated in 2022. Satellite data leading up to the collapse hint at worrying changes in a supposedly stable ice sheet.
- Climate
From electric cars to wildfires, how Trump may affect climate actions
Trump’s first term, campaign pledges and nominees point to how efforts to address climate change and environmental issues may fare.
- Climate
Satellite space junk might wreak havoc on the stratosphere
Hundreds of defunct satellites plunge toward Earth every year. Scientists are studying how the chemical stew left in their wake impacts the atmosphere.
- Climate
Climate change has amped up hurricane wind speeds by 29 kph on average
Every single Atlantic hurricane in 2024 had wind speeds supercharged by warming seas. One even jumped two categories of intensity.
- Oceans
The world’s largest coral was discovered in the South Pacific
The behemoth coral, discovered in October in the Solomon Islands, is longer than a blue whale and older than the United States.
- Health & Medicine
22 pesticides show links to prostate cancer
The new finding comes from an analysis of pesticide use and prostate cancer incidence in over 3,100 U.S. counties.
