The portly, balding sculptor-turned-architect must have drawn a few curious gazes as he set up a complicated painting apparatus in the corner of a Renaissance-era piazza. He planted his instrument, which involved an easel, a mirror and a wire framework, near the then unfinished cathedral of Florence in Italy—a cathedral whose monumental dome he would…
A tectonic plate crack in Iceland semnic/iStockphoto/Getty Images Earthquakes may generate huge volumes of hydrogen within the planet by fracturing rocks that then react with water molecules. This hydrogen could be an overlooked source of energy for life deep underground, as well as for people aiming to extract the gas as an alternative fuel. The…
Autism is more common than ever before, a new report suggests. As of 2022, about 1 in 31 children in the United States were diagnosed with autism by the time they were 8 years old, researchers reported online April 15 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Previous studies…
CLIMATEWIRE | One of the biggest mysteries surrounding President Donald Trump’s EPA is how it plans to revoke the endangerment finding — the lifeblood of most climate regulations. Hints about its strategy may have been hiding in plain sight for a month now — ever since EPA announced a slew of deregulatory actions in a…
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images When Robert F Kennedy Jr took over as head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year, it was clear that identifying causes of autism would be one of his top priorities. Before…
Earth’s landmasses are holding onto a lot less water than they used to — and this loss is not just due to melting ice sheets. Terrestrial water storage, which includes water in underground aquifers, lakes, rivers and the tiny pore spaces within soil, declined by trillions of metric tons in the early 21st century, researchers…
Humanity’s aspirations have long pushed the boundaries of our delicate balance with nature, from our expanding industrial might to our prowling of the seas. For the past several years, our ambitions have spread in earnest to the heavens, threatening to pollute space itself in a manner never seen before. Now a fresh batch of hardware…
A periodic table of highly charged ions Chunhai Lyu et al. (2025) A new version of the periodic table of elements has predicted hundreds of highly charged ions that could be used to create the next generation of optical atomic clocks. The periodic table, first invented by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, groups the 118 known…
Warren Loeppky has been a pediatric dentist in the Canadian city of Calgary for 20 years. Over the last decade, he says, tooth decay in children he’s seen has become more common, more aggressive and more severe. Many of his young patients have so much damage that he has to work with them under general…
Bird Migration Is Peaking in the U.S.—Here’s How to Watch The spectacle of spring bird migration is in full swing, and you can get in on the action By Kate Wong edited by Jeanna Bryner A male Blackburnian warbler (Setophaga fusca) singing a territorial song. George Grall/Alamy Stock Photo The spring migration of birds from…
