SCIENCE

Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic is a treeless, rocky and bitterly cold wilderness, with large parts covered by thick glaciers. But some 52 million years ago it had dense forests and a steamier climate more like present-day…

The transition to electric vehicles could lead to lithium shortages unless the United States and other countries overhaul their transportation systems and move away from private cars as the primary means of travel. Simply converting the…

On January 6 a powerful solar flare erupted from the surface of the sun. It was the first X-class flare—the strongest type on the flare intensity scale—in around two months. Two further X-class flares followed within the next few days,…

In 1909 the mayor of Tokyo sent a gift of 2,000 prized cherry trees to Washington, D.C. But the iconic blossoms that are now enjoyed each spring along the city’s Tidal Basin are not from those trees. That’s because Flora Patterson, who…

The coming decade will see a resurgence in lunar exploration — including dozens of missions and plans to establish permanent bases on the Moon. The endeavours pose myriad challenges. Among them is a subtle, but fundamental, question that…

Many countries saw drops in life expectancy during the pandemic, but some populations have suffered more than others Credit: Amanda Montañez; Sources: “Life Expectancy Changes since COVID-19,” by Jonas Schöley et al., in Nature Human…

Did humans domesticate plants, or did they domesticate us? While this provocative question might not be the way we learned about the history of agriculture in high school, it animates the current study of archaeology. What’s at stake is…

The emergence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is often attributed to the overuse of antibiotics in people and livestock. But researchers have homed in on another potential driver of resistance:…

No drug with consistent statistical evidence from clinical trials had ever been found to slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease before the Food and Drug Administration gave its nod this month to lecanemab, which clears the brain of the…

To protect from deadly drought and make it on land, plants developed complicated inner plumbing Source link