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Dryland ecosystems cover 40% of the Earth's land surface and support more than 2 billion people. According to a new study published in Nature Climate Change, they're becoming increasingly unstable.
"How does the type of music affect plant growth?"—Thomas, 14, Auckland, New Zealand
Like tendrils on a vine, lava spreads out from the northern crater of Krasheninnikov, a volcano pair on the Pacific coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. On July 30, 2025, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the nearby ...
In the search for extraterrestrial life, it makes sense to first look for rocky planets with an atmosphere, like Earth. Without an atmosphere, a planet can't have surface water. But of the more than 6,300 exoplanets cataloged ...
During NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission aboard the International Space Station, astronauts will support a series of biomedical and human performance investigations, including a new collaborative effort to study how spaceflight ...
On the surface, the arid expanses of the Mojave Desert may seem inhospitable and largely removed from the global carbon cycle. But beneath the surface, its mineral-rich soils are running a carbon cycle of their own—one that ...
Quantum materials do things ordinary materials cannot. They carry current without any loss, or conduct only along their outer edge while the inside insulates. Future quantum computers and quantum sensors will run on materials ...
Fossils offer a glimpse into Earth's distant past. They provide insights into extinct animals and plants, as well as past ecosystems. However, the fossil record is incomplete: Fossilization is rare, and only a small fraction ...
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the universe's oldest light, leftover thermal radiation from about 380,000 years after the big bang. Maps of the CMB offer a picture of the "baby universe" as it was 13.8 billion years ...
In August 2026, an iceberg the size of Manhattan broke away from the Petermann Ice Shelf in northern Greenland. It was the glacier's largest calving event since 2020. Long before the breakup, CIRES scientists were developing ...
