When the environmental group Greenpeace lost a nearly $670 million verdict this month over its role in oil pipeline protests, a quarter-billion dollars of the damages were awarded not for the actual demonstrations, but for defaming the pipeline’s owner. The costly verdict has raised alarm among activist organizations as well as some First Amendment experts, … Read more
President Trump’s tariffs could drive up prices. His efforts to reduce the federal work force could increase unemployment. But ask economists which of the administration’s policies they are most concerned about and many point to cuts to federal support for scientific research. The Trump administration in recent weeks has canceled or frozen billions of dollars … Read more
Ten years ago, this was just a big hole in the ground behind a Lowe’s home improvement store in southern New Jersey, an unlikely place to find what might be one of the world’s most important fossil sites. But 66 million years ago, tantalizingly close in time to when the dinosaurs went extinct, a multitude … Read more
As many as one in five people — an estimated 64 million in the United States — have elevated levels of a tiny particle in their blood. It can greatly increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But few know about it, and almost no doctors test for it, because there was not much … Read more
March 29: This event has concluded and you can see photos and videos from the solar eclipse here. Another eclipse is upon us. On Saturday, the moon will cast its shadow on Earth’s surface, a phenomenon that people in parts of the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, Russia and Africa will get to experience … Read more
As the sun rose in the Northern Hemisphere on Saturday, the moon cut across Earth’s orbit and took a bite out of the sun. The partial solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon moves between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow on our planet, was the first of the year and was visible … Read more
Many people use a smartwatch to monitor their cardiovascular health, often by counting the number of steps they take over the course of their day, or recording their average daily heart rate. Now, researchers are proposing an enhanced metric, which combines the two using basic math: Divide your average daily heart rate by your daily … Read more
The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, abruptly resigned Friday, saying in a searing letter that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive stance on vaccines was irresponsible and posed a danger to the public. “It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather … Read more
The City of Fort Worth, Texas, is ending its contract with Synagro, the Goldman Sachs-backed provider of fertilizer made from sewage sludge, over concerns that “forever chemicals” in the fertilizer are contaminating local farmland and groundwater. Fort Worth this month also sued several manufacturers of the chemicals, also called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, … Read more
The silent season is drawing to a close. All winter, there was little birdsong to lift my heart. The occasional caw of a crow, the chickadee-dee-dee of a chickadee, the big song of the little Carolina wren that now stays on our Pennsylvania farm all winter. But no courtship call of great horned owls, no … Read more