Located just a few hours’ drive from the Canadian border, Missoula, Mont. is not known for sweltering temperatures. And yet heat waves are becoming more common in the mountainous region due to climate change, and researchers are concerned that a catastrophic heat event could soon shock the 120,000 or so people who call Missoula County…
November 13, 2025 3 min read Dangerous Rogue Waves Aren’t Random—They’re Predictable An 18-year dataset from the North Sea reveals that rogue waves are not freak accidents but particular products of ordinary swells stacking up—an insight that could make prediction possible By Avery Schuyler Nunn edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Under a hazy gray sky…
November 13, 2025 3 min read Chinese Expedition Reveals Unexplored Section of Mysterious Arctic Ocean Ridge Oceanographers hope to find otherworldly ecosystems at hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor By Alexandra Witze & Nature magazine The submersible Fendouzhe being deployed off a Chinese icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Courtesy of the Fendouzhe Research Team Chinese…
Astronomy can be a difficult topic for newcomers. Like any scientific field, it has its own jargon and buzzwords—and terms with meanings that can be not only odd but downright counterintuitive. The most obvious one is astronomers’ use of the word metal to mean any element heavier than helium. Lithium? Metal. Oxygen? Metal. Carbon? That’s…
November 14, 2025 2 min read Global Study Reveals Best Cities for Walking and Cycling Data from 11,587 cities show that, rain or shine, some places are just better for bikes and pedestrians By Jesse Greenspan edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Eve Lu; Source: “Global Health and Climate Benefits from Walking and Cycling Infrastructure,” by…
What do you look for in a partner? mapodile/Getty Would you rather be good-looking but with a plain partner or be unattractive yourself but with a hot date? How you answer the question probably depends on what sex you are. A survey of more than 1200 heterosexual US adults found that when forced to choose…
November 14, 2025 3 min read Raccoons Are Showing Early Signs of Domestication City-dwelling raccoons seem to be evolving a shorter snout—a telltale feature of our pets and other domesticated animals By Marina Wang edited by Andrea Thompson A raccoon in a trash can. With dexterous childlike hands and cheeky “masks,” raccoons are North America’s…
Ryan Wills; Barry Hetherington; ESA; NASA; AdobeStock Richard Binzel has been watching the skies for hazardous asteroids for more than 50 years. In 1995, he proposed the Near-Earth Object Hazard Index, later renamed the Torino scale, which rates asteroids from 0 to 10 based on how certain we are that they could hit Earth –…
November 14, 2025 1 min read Stranded Chinese Astronauts Return to Earth, but Space Junk Threats Remain The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft was too damaged to bring its crew home from China’s Tiangong space station. Those astronauts have now returned via the Shenzhou 21 craft, leaving its crew without a return ride until the nation sends…
Artist’s impression of a coronal mass ejection on a star Olena Shmahalo/Callingham et al. A cloud of plasma ejected by a star 130 light years away has been detected by a radio telescope on Earth, giving astronomers their first definitive observation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star beyond our sun. CMEs occur…
