Science

The Greenest Way to Grill

The type of fuel you choose isn’t as important as how sustainably it’s sourced, and what you’re grilling matters more.

The Story of Songbirds Is a Story of Sugar

Long ago, songbirds executed an evolutionary power move, rejiggering a sensor for savory tastes to react to sweetness.

Space Billionaires, Please Read the Room

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are choosing a terrible time to leave Earth.

Maine Has a Dangerous, Small, and Very Itchy Problem

Climate change is keeping temperatures higher in the fall, setting up browntail-moth caterpillars to boom in summer.

The Pros and Cons of Spiky Genitals

Seed-beetle sex seems like a classic conflict between males and females, but new research gives it a twist.

The Energy Revolution Is Tweaking OPEC Out

Oil-producing countries are starting to prepare for a peak in oil demand. That isn’t necessarily good news for the planet.

A Volcano, a Fishing Boat, and a Narrow Escape

Two government biologists barely made it off a remote Alaskan island alive. No one had known it was ready to erupt.

The Last Thing Albatrosses Needed Was a New Predator

Southern giant petrels are known for eating krill and fish. Why are they suddenly hunting birds their own size?

America’s Vaccine Future Is Fragmenting

Vaccinated America is on track to real safety. Unvaccinated America still faces a real danger from Delta.

Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?

A pair of recent cheating scandals—one in the “speedrunning” community of gamers, and one in medical research—call attention to an alarming contrast.

Guess Who’s Going to Space With Jeff Bezos?

Wally Funk has been ready to become an astronaut for six decades.

Doctors Are Puzzled by Heart Inflammation in the Young and Vaccinated

Weighing the balance of risks is a shade more challenging when it affects the youngest among us.

The Extremes a Walrus Will Go to for Love

In pursuit of a mate, Sivuqaq produced such stupendously loud sounds that researchers had to understand how they worked.

An Event So Wild It Could Make Anyone Feel Cosmically Small

Gravitational waves have brought us long-sought proof of a cataclysmic meeting between a black hole and a neutron star.

Nowhere Is Ready for This Heat

The Pacific Northwest is melting now, but all across America the infrastructure we have was built for the wrong century.

Why No One Is Sure If Delta Is Deadlier

The variants are spreading faster, but they don’t necessarily have incentive to kill more often.

A Grisly Skin Disease Is Creeping Into the American South

Flesh-eating parasites keep popping up in unexpected places.

No One Imagined Giant Lizard Nests Would Be This Weird

People didn’t know where yellow-spotted goannas laid their eggs, until one team started digging.

The UFO Trap

Whenever UFOs make the news, standards of skepticism start to slip.

When ‘the Aliens Are Us’

Two astronomers tracked the star systems that, if they had life, could look toward us and discover our planet the same way we detect others.