Rare thunderstorms have peppered the California landscape with conflagrations, pouring smoke into the Bay Area—all as…
Author: Matt Simon
Wait, How Much Microplastic Is Swirling in the Atlantic?
Scientists calculate that the top 200 meters of ocean alone contains up to 21 million metric…
AI Magic Makes Century-Old Films Look New
Denis Shiryaev uses algorithms to colorize and sharpen old movies, bumping them up to a smooth…
Yes, Emissions Have Fallen. That Won’t Fix Climate Change
The drop in carbon pollution will cool the planet only a tiny bit. So how about…
Your Income Predicts How Well You Can Socially Distance
America's rich used to move around more than the poor. When Covid landed, that flipped: The…
Should Governments Slap a Tax on Plastic?
More than a billion tons of it could enter the environment in the next 20 years.…
Frog Eats Beetle. Beetle Crawls Through Guts to Escape
Regimbartia attenuata doesn’t take too kindly to being eaten. Once locked inside a frog’s maw, it…
Mad Scientists Revive 100-Million-Year-Old Microbes
Researchers collected sediment thousands of feet deep, filtered out bacteria, and revived the cells. But fear…
A Billion More Tons of Plastic Could Blanket Earth by 2040
Even with immediate action, 710 million metric tons of plastic will enter the environment in the…
During Lockdowns, the Earth (Sort of) Stood Still
Seismometers pick up human activity, like driving. When Covid arrived, scientists watched that global seismic noise…