First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth

Researchers plan to spray sunlight-reflecting particles into the stratosphere, an approach that could ultimately be used to quickly lower the planet’s temperature.

Powerful People Who Fought for the Planet in 2018

This year we saw leaders propelling environmental activism forward and demanding collaborative action on climate change. These are nine powerful people who stood up for the environment in 2018.

Famous Men Who Boldly Stood Up for Women in 2018

The gender pay gap persists, women are most likely to live in poverty and sexual violence remains rampant. But here are 13 famous men who stood up for women in 2018.

Luxembourg Makes All Public Transportation Free

Public transportation will be free to all riders beginning in 2020 as the country struggles to deal with some of the worst congestion in Europe and air pollution in its capital city.

Researchers grow a placenta in a petri dish

We know a placenta is essential for a successful pregnancy, but we don’t really know exactly how it works because we’ve had no experimental models we can use to study it. Until now.

Childhood Antibiotics Could Raise Risk of Mental Illness

A new study suggests there’s another, more subtle consequence of antibiotic use, at least in young people: a higher risk of developing serious mental illnesses like obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.

Voyager 2 crosses solar boundary, moves into interstellar space

More than 41 years and nearly 18 billion km from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has finally passed beyond the protective bubble defined by the Sun’s magnetic fields and solar wind, joining its sistership Voyager 1 in the interstellar space.

Volkswagen plans to drop diesel and petrol cars

Volkswagen announced a plan to get out of the business of fossil fuel cars and to go 100% electric. They’ll launch their final generation of fossil fuel cars in 2026 and plan to stop selling them all together by 2040.

Chanel ditches furs and animal skins

Chanel is the latest high-end fashion label to go cruelty-free. The luxury brand announced this week that it will ban furs and animal skins, including crocodile, lizard, snake, and stingray, from its collections.

Nature can teach your kid resilience

Spending time outside teaches kids to cope with challenging situations, both emotional and physical. It allows for scenarios in which a certain degree of character-building hardship is experienced without being cruel or unfair to the child.

Heavy screen time appears to impact children brains

Nine and 10-year-old kids spending more than seven hours a day using smart devices show signs of premature thinning of the cortex, the brain's outermost layer that processes sensory information.

A new battery concept may increase battery lifespans

Imagine not having to charge your phone or laptop for weeks. Fluoride-based batteries have the potential to last up to eight times longer than those in use today.

China launches historic mission to land on far side of the moon

The Chang’e 4 mission lifted off Friday 18:23 GMT (1:23 p.m. EST) from China’s Xichang space center, kicking off a journey that will culminate in an attempt in early January to touch down on the far side of the Moon for the first time.

The Large Hadron Collider Is Shutting Down For Two Years

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is getting a big boost to its performance. Unfortunately, for fans of ground-breaking physics, the whole thing has to be shut down for two years while the work is done.

NASA's InSight Mars Lander 'Hears' Martian Wind, a Cosmic First

For the first time in history, we can hear the wind on Mars. With its InSight Lander NASA provided a version of the recording shifted up in pitch, which pulls some of the otherwise-inaudible infrasound into hearing range.