Nature

Antarctica has long been seen as a remote, unchanging environment. Not any more. The ice-covered continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean are undergoing abrupt and alarming changes. Sea ice is shrinking rapidly, the floating glaciers known as ice shelves are melting faster, the ice sheets carpeting the continent are approaching tipping points and vital ocean […]

In November 2020, a freak wave appeared, lifting a lone buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters (58 feet) high. A few years later, the four-story wall of water was confirmed to be the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded. Such an extraordinary event is thought to happen only once every 1,300 years.

During the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR launched 29 spacecraft towards Venus, the planet scientists call Earth’s “twin sister“. Three flew past Venus, and went into orbit around the Sun. Sixteen orbited or landed on Venus, where they experienced a climate often described as “hellish”.Ten got stuck in Earth orbit. All

The idea that our Solar System is representative of other solar systems hasn’t survived the age of exoplanet discovery. Kepler and TESS have shown us that our system doesn’t even contain the most common type of planet: sub-Neptunes. These planets pose a mystery to planetary scientists, and the JWST is helping unravel the mystery.Sub-Neptunes are

It’s time to get outside and look at the night sky: the Eta Aquariid meteor shower is about to peak. Over May 5 to 6, the sky over the southern tropics will rain the most cosmic dust of the annual event, glittering with light as it burns up on atmospheric entry..The shower itself will continue to late May,

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has officially declared the eastern American puma (scientifically named puma concolor cougar) extinct, one of the mountain lion subspecies, after removing it from the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife of extinction. “We determined that the eastern puma has become extinct, based on the best scientific and commercial

A trove of arboreal fossils pushes back the origin of modern forests and sophisticated tree roots At  three trillion strong, Earth’s trees are estimated to outnumber the stars in the Milky Way. These woody wonders sponge carbon dioxide out of the skies, brace soil against erosion, cycle water through ecosystems and support countless forms of life.