Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have spotted a contradiction in worldwide wildfire trends: Despite a 26 percent decline in total burned area from 2002 to 2021, the number of people exposed to wildfires has surged by nearly 40 percent. The study, published on August 21 in Science, revealed another statistic that…
As Great Salt Lake’s levels continue to sag, yet another strange phenomenon has surfaced, offering Utah scientists more opportunities to plumb the vast saline lake’s secrets. Phragmites-covered mounds in recent years have appeared on the drying playa off the lake’s southeast shore. After several years of scratching their heads, University of Utah geoscientists, deploying a…
A new Stanford study challenges the decades-old view that the rise of land plants half a billion years ago dramatically changed the shapes of rivers. Rivers generally come in two styles: braided, where multiple channels flow around sandy bars, and meandering, where a single channel cuts S-curves across a landscape. Geologists have long thought that…
Luke MintzBBC News BBC Harold Dillard was 56 when he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer around his abdomen in November 2009. Within weeks the former car mechanic and handyman – a Texan “Mr Fix It” type who wore a cowboy hat and jeans nearly every day – was in end-of-life hospice care. In his…
Beta blockers—drugs commonly prescribed for a range of cardiac conditions, including heart attacks—provide no clinical benefit for patients who have had an uncomplicated myocardial infarction with preserved heart function. Beta blockers have been the standard treatment for these patients for 40 years. This is a breakthrough discovery from the “REBOOT Trial” with senior investigator Valentin…
Sharon BarbourHealth correspondent, BBC North East and Cumbria Supplied Baby Saskia had the typical measles rash Nowhere in the north-east of England and Cumbria has the childhood measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination rate of 95% needed to achieve the “herd immunity” at which point disease does not spread, latest figures show. Middlesbrough has the…
Getty Images A baby whose mother was not vaccinated against whooping cough while pregnant has died after contracting the infection, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said. The death, which occurred between January and June 2025, is the first fatal case of whooping cough in the UK this year. It follows government warnings about…
New research published in the journal Science reveals the Red Planet’s mantle preserves a record of its violent beginnings. The inside of Mars isn’t smooth and uniform like familiar textbook illustrations. Instead, new research reveals it’s chunky — more like a Rocky Road brownie than a neat slice of Millionaire’s Shortbread. We often picture rocky…
A study led by Jenny Frediani at Stockholm University has revealed a planet-forming disk with a strikingly unusual chemical composition: an unexpectedly high abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in regions where Earth-like planets may one day form. The discovery, made using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenges long-standing assumptions about the chemistry of planetary…
In a new study, scientists at the University of Missouri looked deep into the universe and found something unexpected. Using infrared images taken from NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they identified 300 objects that were brighter than they should be. “These mysterious objects are candidate galaxies in the early universe, meaning they could…
