With fewer than 90 days until COP26, the annual United Governments climate change meeting in Glasgow, Scotland this November, nations are under increasing pressure to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The 2015 Paris Agreement called for pledges to keep global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to keep…
What would you do with 1,000 butts if you had them? Ramisyllis multicaudata, a sea worm, is one of only two known creatures to find itself in this precarious predicament (shopping for trousers must be a nightmare)—and it isn’t telling. Given that a worm doesn’t “just happen” to have that many booties, there must be…
Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a new tuna-inspired robot that can flap its tail as quickly as actual tuna (seven times per second) and swim at speeds of up to 1.5 mph, or two body lengths per second. The team behind this invention explains how they created this tuna-like robot, which can…
Snakes are cunning creatures. They’ve slithered their way into almost every corner of the globe in their 150 million-odd years on our planet. Saint Patrick, on the other hand, can’t take credit for eradicating our scaly companions from any of them. Ireland, like almost every other country without snakes, never had them to begin with.…
Stanton Glantz is one of the few scientists who has battled smoking as fiercely as he has. Glantz led campaigns to ban smoking in public places, exposed secret tobacco industry documents, and wrote or co-wrote five books and nearly 400 papers, the majority of which documented the harm caused by tobacco. Glantz was a professor…
The earth is warming at an unprecedented rate in the last 2,000 years as a result of modern society’s continuous reliance on fossil fuels. and its consequences are already being felt as record droughts, wildfires, and floods wreak havoc on communities around the world. according to a groundbreaking United Nations assessment on the state of…
Vaccinated Americans will be permitted to go to Canada again, but the US will keep its side of the border closed as Delta continues to spread, particularly in the South. Meanwhile, it’s becoming clear that kids can develop lengthy COVID, and some Americans are self-medicating with illicit booster doses. Here’s what’s new in COVID this…
I went for a run on June 27 as the rest of the Pacific Northwest huddled indoors due to record-breaking heat. I’m used to jogging in the heat as a former cross-country runner: I hit the trails around 7:00 a.m. and chose a more shady path The weather was nice when I left the home,…
Despite our near-constant anxiety about restlessness, Americans today sleep about the same amount as they did 50 years ago. But it doesn’t mean we’re getting enough shut-eye. According to a 2020 poll by the National Sleep Foundation, over one-third of US citizens aren’t getting the seven or more hours of sleep each day suggested by…
General Motors is the automotive industry’s granddaddy. The Detroit-based company is credited with creating America’s first muscle vehicle in 1949, and it has been producing hits for over 70 years. Although today’s muscle vehicles may differ from their predecessors in appearance, the concept remains the same: cram a massive V8 engine under the hood and…