Science

Astronomers have discovered that Earth’s large, ever-looming moon is about to get company. Beginning on Sunday, the planet will capture an asteroid sailing nearby, drawing it in for one loop around Earth before making its exit on Nov. 25. When it leaves, it will continue its trajectory around the sun. …

Migraine attacks are no ordinary headache. They can cause intense pain and sickness, lasting hours or even days, making it impossible to do anything but rest in a dark, quiet room. And for millions of women, these debilitating attacks aren’t just an occasional experience but a recurring ordeal. Women suffer …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Nearly a century ago, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger called attention to a quirk of the quantum world that has fascinated and vexed researchers ever since. When quantum particles such as atoms interact, they shed their individual identities in favor of …

A NASA probe, the length of a basketball court, is headed to the tantalizing world Europa. Planetary scientists are confident this moon of Jupiter harbors a deep ocean. A looming question is whether it hosts the ingredients and conditions to support life. With around 50 close flybys of the planet, …

This summer NASA‘s two car-sized labs exploring Mars each discovered rocks that neither mission had seen before, revealing a more diverse history for the planet than previously thought. Three major findings happened within the span of seven weeks. The Curiosity rover, which has been climbing a mountain of layered rock, …

THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Milton Orr looked across the rolling hills in northeast Tennessee. “I remember when we had over 1,000 dairy farms in this county. Now we have less than 40,” Orr, an agriculture adviser for Greene County, Tennessee, told me …

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A new UC Riverside study on California agriculture and climate proposes a plan for new water capture, storage, and distribution systems throughout California that will sustain agriculture and keep up with climate trajectories. Available …

The James Webb Space Telescope will soon begin a massive study of rocky worlds outside the solar system, specifically to discover if planets orbiting closely to small cool stars could have air. Scientists plan to start with LTT 1445 Ac and GJ 3929 b, and though those exoplanets might not …

Imposing bears teem in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. But few dare enter its Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. In 1912, a volcano was born here. It erupted for nearly three days. Its ominous ash clouds left the town of Kodiak, 100 miles away, in profound darkness, nearly obscuring …

Four days, 10 witnesses, and dozens of exhibits in the US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation hearing on the Titan submersible implosion have made public a flood of information about the doomed vessel’s design and operation. But one thing the hearings have not yet explained is why the submersible …