The inner solar system is a lot calmer than it was 4 billion years ago, during what’s known as the heavy bombardment period. Over the course of that viol...

Air conditioning is one of our great guilty pleasures. When your town is suffocating under a 100-degree heat dome, there’s nothing like the sweet relief that comes from returning home, cranking up the AC, and leaving behind the sweltering outdoor atmosphere ...

There is all manner of geopolitical and military fallout likely to come from the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear enrichment sites on June 21. What worries a lot of people more, however, is the literal fallout—the radioactive contamination that could be released when massive, bunker-buster munitions are dropped on facilities said to contain more than

A heat dome is building over the U.S. and Canada this week, bringing triple-digit temperatures to millions of people. The extreme heat comes as forecasts predict that most of the U.S. will face a hotter than averag...

It’s both easy and hard to miss plastic grocery bags—easy because they’re strong, light, free, and they can double as little trash bags once you’ve got them home and emptied out your groceries, and the bags’ single-use purpose has been served; hard because the blasted things get everywhere. Discarded on trash piles, they get caught in the wind and tangled up in powerli...