Humanity has made great strides in recent decades: air is cleaner; poverty, deforestation and childhood mortality have fallen; gasoline cars—and maybe coal—are on the way out.
The rescue mission began with a splash. Flippered and masked snorkelers rolled off a boat anchored near Marathon and into chest-high water. It didn't take long to spot the target.
With their bulging red eyes and their alien-like mating sound, periodical cicadas can seem scary and weird enough. But some of them really are sex-crazed zombies on speed, hijacked by a super-sized fungus.
Mayumi Barrack sees a pair of mating periodical cicadas getting together, whips out her phone, says, "Hi guys!" and takes their picture.
Many more people around the world than normal were recently able to see the northern and southern lights overhead with the naked eye. This unusual event was triggered by a very strong solar storm, which affected the movement ...
So-called "zombie fires" in the peatlands of Alaska, Canada and Siberia disappear from the Earth's surface and smolder underground during the winter before coming back to life the following spring. These fires puzzle scientists ...
Marine microbes control the flux of matter and energy essential for life in the oceans. Among them, the bacterial group SAR11 accounts for about a third of all the bacteria found in surface ocean waters.
Once upon a time, human relationships unfolded without smartphones. The reality may be hard to recall, so profoundly have these devices transformed the way we relate to the world and others in fifteen years or so.
Thousands of residents of Fort McMurray, a city in Canada's major oil-producing region, fled as an out-of-control wildfire drew near and thick smoke filled the skies.
One of the year's first major wildfires in Canada closed in Monday on the British Columbia town of Fort Nelson, as thousands of people across the nation were forced to flee advancing blazes.
