Science

Casey Means isn’t currently licensed as a doctor. But that’s not why anti-vaxxers and conspiracists think she’s unsuited to be surgeon general—to them, her anti-vaccine opinions aren't extreme enough.

CBP’s acting commissioner has rescinded four Biden-era policies that aimed to protect vulnerable people in the agency’s custody, including mothers, infants, and the elderly.

With measles on the rise, this episode of Uncanny Valley looks at RFK Jr.’s role in the revival of the once-eliminated deadly illness.

NIAID’s Integrated Research Facility is one of the few federal facilities charged with studying Ebola. Tuesday afternoon, all of its work was put on indefinite pause by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department.

Following inaction from the government, fishing communities and conservationists are taking it upon themselves to set up and monitor no-catch zones to combat species depletion caused by overfishing.

A new species of cable bacteria, which function like electrical wiring, was recently discovered in the US. Its unique morphology and genetic structure may be useful for the development of bioelectronics.

Instability, cuts, and a looming sense of dread have FEMA employees unsure the agency is ready for hurricanes, fires, and floods. “We are being set up for a really, really bad situation," says one.

The Tamaulipan thorn forest once covered 1 million acres on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Restoring even a fraction of it could help the region cope with the ravages of a warming world.

As it shifts responsibility for recovery efforts to local authorities, FEMA workers will stop knocking on doors to provide aid to survivors in disaster areas, per a memo obtained by WIRED.

The Covid-19 pandemic showed just how vulnerable global supply chains are. Climate shocks could pose an even greater risk.

Las Arenitas is an artificial oasis that recycles used water from the border city of Mexicali to regenerate ecosystems in the Colorado River delta.

Some $380 million is now in limbo after reductions in the federal workforce affected staff that run a program helping low-income people pay their energy bills.

In countries like Germany, balcony-mounted solar panels are all the rage. But from breaker-masking to voltage mismatches, America’s grid isn’t ready for it—yet.

There’s still no official explanation for the blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France—but experts point to the makeup of the Iberian peninsula’s power grid.

The Trump administration aims to make fossil fuels cheap—so cheap they wouldn’t be worth extracting. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth,” one oil executive has said.

Critics of the NRC say its red tape and lengthy authorization timelines stifle innovation, but handing some of its responsibilities to states could undermine public trust and the industry’s safety record.

Products made in space—and used on Earth—could be a reality in the coming years.

New data from the James Webb Space Telescope suggests a planet in a faraway solar system was consumed by a star by hurling itself into it.

This meteor shower is underway and peaks on the night of May 5–6. Here’s everything you need to know to watch it and the other major showers that will appear in 2025.

A rock containing many smaller round stones could indicate that there was once a large amount of liquid water on the Red Planet.

When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement, and its inverse, have deep connections to many areas of math and computer science.

Those epic battle scenes in space are awesome—and physically impossible. But hey, it’s more fun this way!

It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do so for some critical optimization tasks.

By understanding the churning region near singularities, physicists hope they might be able to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics.

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly alleges the companies are selling illegal off-brand versions of its best-selling diabetes and weight-loss drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound.

A novel drug that produces a temporary coating in the small intestine could be a new strategy for weight loss—and an alternative to surgeries and GLP-1 drugs.

Startup Colossal Biosciences has edited the DNA of a gray wolf to produce what it says is a de-extincted animal. Does that make it a true dire wolf?

In an advance for treating male infertility, researchers transplanted a patient with his own sperm-forming stem cells that were collected from testicular tissue when he was a child.

Forget Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of VR meetings; the industrial metaverse bridges digital and physical worlds in a way that’s actually useful.

Long confined to the lab, humanoids finally appear ready to work in manufacturing. There are just a few hurdles to get them to market.

In the face of seabeds becoming valuable real estate and corroding bombs polluting the oceans, teams are turning to technology to clean up this dangerous and expensive problem.

Research and development is underway to create robots that can hunt for signs of life in the vast oceans that exist under the thick ice shells of bodies like Europa.

Reacquaint yourself with the good things in life by taking the time to appreciate them—and yes, it’s OK to rush through the bad stuff.

With big cash prizes at stake—and AI supercharging research—interspecies translation is closer than ever. But what, if anything, would animals want to tell us?

Forecasting is both art and science, reliant on both rigor and luck—but you can develop a mindset that anticipates and plans ahead.

Driving represented an interesting way for neuroscientists to study how rodents acquire new skills, and unexpectedly, rats had an intense motivation for their driving training.