Science & Technology
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Legislature sweeps Florida Forever funding to rural conservation program
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Legislature has gone from budgeting $229 million to the Florida Forever program two years ago to putting no new money into it next year, something that has rarely happened in the 25-year history of the state’s premier land conservation initiative.
Instead of buying land for the public to enjoy, the ...Read more
Cape Canaveral could get new launch site only 2 miles from the port
ORLANDO, Fla. — A new launch pad could be constructed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — if the military has its way.
The Department of the Air Force, which oversees the facility, is gathering information for an Environmental Assessment for a proposed Space Launch Complex 51 that would be about 2 miles from Port Canaveral.
The goal of...Read more
Low-resistance tires could cut drivers' costs while supporting environment in California
LOS ANGELES — More than 20 years after legislators first told the California Energy Commission that replacement tires need to be as energy-efficient as original tires, the agency is taking action.
Tires on new cars have low “rolling resistance,” meaning there is less friction and drag on the engine as it propels the car forward. That ...Read more
US's screwworm fix is still a year away, risking more spread
The U.S.’s best weapon against a deadly cattle parasite threatening the beef industry is more than a year away from showing meaningful results, raising concerns over how far the outbreak could spread before then.
When the New World screwworm reached the U.S. earlier this month after advancing across Mexico for more than a year, federal ...Read more
'It's an injustice': Shrinking state funds could slow fixes for Californians with toxic water
In a neighborhood flanked by grapevines and orange groves on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, people cannot drink the water from their faucets because it’s contaminated.
Residents in the area north of Porterville, many of them farmworkers, have been discussing a solution, which they expect will require running pipes to connect to the ...Read more
Efforts to combat climate change often exclude Indigenous people – and they may not have any recourse
Imagine living in the same forest as your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and all your ancestors as far back in time as stories can tell, and depending on the forest for food, shelter, recreation and education. Imagine, then, that the forest depends on you, too, because you and your people have protected it for generations.
...Read more
El Niño is back, and ocean temperatures are already near record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals
It’s official: El Niño is back. By late fall 2026, forecast models give a 2-in-3 chance of a strong-to-very strong El Niño affecting the weather, climate and ocean temperatures across the planet.
El Niño is the climate system’s biggest player and one side of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s the heads to La Ni�...Read more
OpenAI probed by coalition of state attorneys general
OpenAI is under investigation by a coalition of state attorneys general who requested information from the artificial intelligence company on a wide range of topics.
A spokesperson for the company said it was cooperating with the probe.
“AI is a new and powerful technology, and we work every day to safely bring its benefits to people in a ...Read more
SpaceX launches from Cape Canaveral same day as its IPO
On the same day Elon Musk’s SpaceX debuts on Wall Street, the company was business as usual launching another batch of Starlink satellites from the Space Coast.
A Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-54 mission carrying 29 of the broadband internet satellites lifted off at 8:37 a.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch...Read more
New NIH-funded center at Pitt explores 'natural predators of bacteria'
PITTSBURGH — For more than a century, antibiotics have been medicine's go-to weapon against bacterial infections.
But as drug-resistant bacteria become increasingly common, researchers are looking to an oft-overlooked ally: viruses.
At the University of Pittsburgh, scientists are helping lead a national effort to advance phage therapy, a ...Read more
Newsom commits $46 million to Tijuana River sewage and pollution cleanup
As South Bay communities continue to grapple with closed beaches, toxic air and raw sewage, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that $46 million in voter-approved funding is now available to help clean up the polluted Tijuana River that flows from Mexico into the U.S. — though local officials caution relief won’t come overnight. ...Read more
Trump opens protected Pacific waters to commercial fishing
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday opened protected Pacific Ocean waters to commercial fishing, lifting restrictions that barred the activity within three marine national monuments.
With a presidential proclamation signed in the Oval Office, Trump removed the fishing limits within portions of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine ...Read more
Florida scientists set record after removing 4 tons of invasive Burmese pythons
Four tons of invasive Burmese pythons were removed from South Florida ecosystems during the latest breeding season, setting a record for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
The achievement marks a new milestone in the fight against the giant snakes, which are considered one of the greatest threats to the Everglades ecosystem because of their ...Read more
How Pennsylvania towns are protecting themselves from the noise, heat and utility costs of massive data centers
Pennsylvania has become a hot spot for data center proposals and public backlash about where to build them.
I’m a law professor and executive director of Penn State’s Center for Energy Law and Policy. I’m also a native of Archbald, a borough of 7,500 residents in the Lackawanna Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. My hometown ...Read more
How the development of solar and wind farms on the Tibetan Plateau is affecting local communities
China is building some of the world’s largest solar farms on the Tibetan Plateau, where nomadic people have grazed herds of animals for millennia.
It’s not the first time Tibetan regions have become a major source of renewable energy in China. Since the mid-1990s, many Tibetan communities have lived alongside hydropower stations.<...Read more
Chicago schools engineer invents a device to lower lead levels in drinking fountains. But can it scale for a citywide crisis?
CHICAGO -- Late at night in 2016, Michael Ramos sat hunched over his dining room table in his suburban Harwood Heights condominium, assembling valves and motor parts he’d picked up from local electronics shops.
By day, he worked as a building engineer at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center high school in Chicago. By night, he tried to ...Read more
Wildfire almost destroyed a pristine California island. Inside the fight to save this ecological oasis
SANTA ROSA ISLAND, Calif. — Just steps above a white sand beach with calm, turquoise waves, the effects of the largest fire in Channel Islands National Park history are particularly stark: Fields of island grasses and chaparral have been reduced to ash, the earth singed to black. Hillsides are colored a rusty red from desperate retardant drops...Read more
Anthropic CEO says government should be able to block new AI models
Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei said the government should have the power to block artificial intelligence developers from deploying new AI models if they present certain risks.
In a lengthy essay on Wednesday, Amodei argued that AI models should undergo mandatory testing by third parties to assess the risk they pose across ...Read more
Life after death: From burned trees to bleached corals, how dead organisms live on as the building blocks of new life
People’s knee-jerk reaction to seeing death in nature is often not positive. The burn scar left by wildfire on a once-forested hillside, or a ghostly white coral reef, may evoke tragedy and despair. But in nature, most plants and animals are recycled back into new life.
The fallen branches and leaves that crunch under your boots as ...Read more
Tech review: Let the robots take over ... your lawn care
My last review was a robot vacuum. This week, we let the robots outside to let it cut the grass.
Years ago, my first experience with robot mowers required a wire to be buried around the perimeter of the yard. When the manufacturer offered to come have a wire buried at my house for testing, it was more than I wanted to deal with, as I’m a ...Read more
Popular Stories
- OpenAI probed by coalition of state attorneys general
- El Niño is back, and ocean temperatures are already near record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals
- Efforts to combat climate change often exclude Indigenous people – and they may not have any recourse
- Newsom commits $46 million to Tijuana River sewage and pollution cleanup
- 'It's an injustice': Shrinking state funds could slow fixes for Californians with toxic water
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