Technology
The American West’s Salt Lakes Are Turning to Dust
A new research and monitoring program aims to conserve threatened but overlooked saline ecosystems.
How Sensor-Dangling Helicopters Can Help Beat the Water...
A simultaneous solution to California’s extreme drought and flooding is to bank more water underground. Send in the choppers (and...
The Problematic Arrival of Anti-Obesity Drugs
Fat activists say they’re tools of coercion. Celebrities are taking them to get slim. Is this really the road people want to go down?
You Might Survive a Nuclear Blast—if You Have the Right...
The escalating risks of Russia’s war in Ukraine have led scientists to study the unthinkable and model the aftermath of nuclear detonation.
This Startup Is Using AI to Unearth New Smells
Google Research spinout Osmo wants to find substitutes for hard-to-source aromas. The tech could inspire new perfumes—and help combat...
Is It Time to Call Time on the Doomsday Clock?
It’s been ticking down the seconds to nuclear apocalypse for three-quarters of a century, but it’s not so helpful when it comes to...
Hey EV Owners: It’d Take a Fraction of You to Prop Up the...
If you agree to provide some of your car’s battery power in times of high energy demand, you’ll get paid, and help make the grid more...
Why Not Cover Ugly Parking Lots With Solar Panels?
In France, a plan to cover swaths of asphalt with photovoltaics will bring renewable energy even closer to urban areas where it’s...
The World’s Farms Are Hooked on Phosphorus. It’s a Problem
Half of the globe’s crop productivity comes from a key fertilizer ingredient that’s non-renewable—and literally washing away.
Why This Universe? Maybe It’s Not Special—Just Probable
Two physicists find that our universe has a higher entropy—and is therefore more likely—than alternative possible universes.
