Tropical weather brings record rainfall. Experts share how to stay safe in floods

The extreme weather seen in places across the United States in recent weeks shows that it doesn’t take a catastrophic hurricane to cause significant damage — the torrential rain from Tropical Storm Debby in parts of the Southeast is just one example. The slow-moving system lingering over Georgia and the Carolinas Wednesday after coming ashore […]

How to Stop Wildfire Smoke Damaging Your Health

THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. When wildfires rage, the immediate threat is obvious—but smoke from the fires actually kills far more people than the flames. As fires become more frequent, that smoke is leading to a public health crisis. In a new study published in the journal Science […]

How to Create More Good Jobs by Simon Johnson

At least since the 2008 global financial crisis, widespread frustration with stagnant economic prospects and deep regional disparities in developed countries has fueled increasingly dangerous forms of anger. But there are constructive ways forward, as the example of the 2022 US CHIPS and Science Act shows. WASHINGTON, DC – In many countries, innovation and good […]

Roadmap details how to improve exoplanet exploration using the James Webb Space Telescope

A new step-by-step roadmap describes how to improve the efficiency of data gathering with the JWST to benefit the astronomy community at large. “Our hope now is that a large-scale community effort guided by the roadmap can be initiated to yield deliverables at a timely pace,” says MIT Associate Professor Julien de Wit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech […]

Everything You See Is a Computational Process, If You Know How to Look

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In the movie Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr challenges the physicist early in his career: Bohr: Algebra is like sheet music. The important thing isn’t “can you read music?” It’s “can you hear it?” Can you hear the music, Robert? Oppenheimer: Yes, I can. I can’t hear the algebra, […]

How to make an old antibiotic 100 times more potent

Scanning electron micrographs at 10,000× magnification of vancomycin resistant E. faecium E155 cells. Left: untreated cells, middle: cells treated with bacitracin, and right: cells treated with next-generation bacitracin. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2315310121 Nathaniel Martin, Professor of biological chemistry, wondered what would happen if you took an antibiotic that […]

A harmless asteroid will whiz past Earth Saturday. Here’s how to spot it

An asteroid will whiz harmlessly past Earth this weekend. With the right equipment and timing, you just might spot it. Called 2024 MK, the space rock will make its closest approach to Earth Saturday morning, passing by at about three-quarters the distance from Earth to the moon. It was first spotted two weeks ago by […]

A harmless asteroid will whiz past Earth Saturday. Here’s how to spot it

In this artistic rendering, two asteroids fly past Earth. An asteroid will whiz harmlessly past Earth Saturday June 29, 2024. With the right equipment and timing, you just might spot it. Called 2024 MK, the space rock will make its closest approach to Earth at 9:46 AM EST (13:46 GMT) passing by at about three-quarters […]

A harmless asteroid will whiz past Earth Saturday. Here’s how to spot it

An asteroid will whiz harmlessly past Earth this weekend. With the right equipment and timing, you just might spot it. Called 2024 MK, the space rock will make its closest approach to Earth Saturday morning, passing by at about three-quarters the distance from Earth to the moon. It was first spotted two weeks ago by […]