In the spring of 1846, a caravan of pioneers left Independence, Missouri, and began the long trek toward California. The group mostly comprised of families who hoped to start a better life out West. The pioneers initially followed the Oregon Trail until Wyoming. Relying on advice from a guidebook, they took what promised to be a shortcut. But the new route was longer than expected and trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains over the winter.“By the time they got back on the established tri ...read more

With the U.N.'s COP29 climate conference underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, a flurry of unsettling news about global heating has emerged. The summit — attended by diplomats from nearly 200 nations, and nearly 60,000 people in total — is intended to be a forum for discussion and adoption of solutions. But this year it's being roiled by even more controversy than usual. Meanwhile, with recent findings showing no easing of our climatic plight, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to take p ...read more

More than three decades ago, amphibian researchers from around the globe converged on Canterbury, England, for the first World Congress of Herpetology — and, over drinks, shared the same frightening tale.Frogs were disappearing in the wild, and no one could explain why.It was “a scary time,” recalls Australian veterinary scientist Lee Berger, who in the 1990s was one of the first to identify the culprit: a water-borne chytrid fungus known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd.Scientists ...read more

Comets are among the most exciting celestial objects to watch. These visitors from the outer reaches of the solar system are basically debris — dust, bits of rock, and frozen gases — left over from its formation. There are a bunch of them out there, too. According to NASA, there are probably billions of comets orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. And sometimes, one passes close enough to Earth for us to see it. Comet C/2023 A3 peaked in October 2024 and is already startin ...read more

Ever since the ancient Greeks first made observations of the circular Moon and the skies, scientists have known that the Earth is a sphere. We’ve all seen beautiful images of the Earth from space, some photographed by astronauts and others collected remotely by orbiting satellites. So why doesn’t our planet look round when we’re standing in a park or looking out a window?The answer is all about perspective. Humans are pretty tiny creatures living on a really large sphere.An average adult i ...read more

“Aren’t they a little young for that?”This is a question I used to hear regularly from parents when I’d recommend strength training for the kids I worked with, whose ages ranged from 6 to 18 years old, in youth sports. During my four years as a strength and conditioning coach, I often received questions from parents about the pros and cons of strength training– that is, training that involves weight-bearing exercises – for children.Some of the most common questions: Is strength train ...read more

Do you believe in psychics, ghosts, or communication with the dead? If so, you may be experiencing a high level of stress or feel a loss of control over your life, according to a study in PLOS ONE.While the study’s authors took great pains to emphasize that the beliefs in paranormal phenomena are not necessarily caused by stress or feelings of having no control, they point out that the relationship between the two are strong. “Findings support the notion that traditional paranormal belief is ...read more

After the Second World War, 1940s America was awash with radar equipment and experienced technicians who could make it work. That set the scene for the birth of a new field of science – radio astronomy. In 1944, the Dutch astronomer Hendrick van de Hulst predicted that interstellar hydrogen ought to emit electromagnetic radiation with a specific wavelength. He noted that a hydrogen atom contains only a proton and an electron that both have a property known as spin. These particles can spin in ...read more

A keeper at the Oklahoma City Zoo one day noticed that Eko, a Sumatran tiger, kept rubbing his face on the side of the fence, breaking all his whiskers. A team started treating the tiger with antihistamines, but he continued to rub his face. Eventually, the staff partnered with a veterinary dermatologist who came out and performed skin allergy testing to see what Eko was reacting to. While allergies in domesticated animals like dogs, cats, horses, and some birds are common, experts say there are ...read more

Around 700 million years ago, the Earth cooled so much that scientists believe massive ice sheets encased the entire planet like a giant snowball. This global deep freeze, known as Snowball Earth, endured for tens of millions of years.Yet, miraculously, early life not only held on but thrived. When the ice melted and the ground thawed, complex multicellular life emerged, eventually leading to the life forms we recognize today.The Snowball Earth hypothesis has been largely based on evidence from ...read more