Science & Earth

The EPA announced it will no longer monetize some health benefits from reductions in fine particulate matter and ozone for at least some Clean Air Act proposals, and the agency says it will continue to account for health impacts without assigning dollar values.

The National Park Service will waive advanced reservations for Horsetail Fall's 'firefall' in February 2026, and the glowing effect is visible for about 5 to 15 minutes when late-day sunlight aligns near sunset.

Israel recognized the Republic of Somaliland on Dec. 26, and President Abdullahi announced plans to open Somaliland's first embassy in Israel.

A coastal storm driven by a jet stream shift is expected to produce a band of snow from southern Georgia to Delaware on Sunday, with the potential for additional accumulation into parts of the Northeast. Exact amounts will hinge on the storm's track and speed.

Kim Greene left a policy career to found Svalinn, which breeds and trains protection dogs sold for about $175,000; the company reported $2.97 million in income and was profitable in 2024.

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) was discovered on Sept. 8, 2025 and is reported to pass near Earth around April 27, 2026.

SpaceX launched 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 14; the Falcon 9 first stage landed on the droneship and the network now has nearly 9,500 active units, according to tracker Jonathan McDowell.

An aerial survey on Jan. 10 recorded 33 North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay, representing over 8% of the estimated 384 whales worldwide, and researchers reported most were shallow subsurface feeding.

Scientists reported 2025’s global average temperature at 15.08°C, about 1.44°C above pre-industrial levels, and said the last three years have hovered near the 1.5°C Paris limit.

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope found a bright, multicolored bow shock around the white dwarf RXJ0528+2838 about 730 light-years away, despite no detected accretion disc. The structure appears to trace an outflow active for at least 1,000 years, and researchers report a strong magnetic field as a possible partial explanation.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy signed a memorandum reaffirming plans to develop a nuclear reactor for a lunar base with a goal of being ready to launch by 2030, and a recent executive order called for a lunar base and reactor by that year.

Researchers used Curiosity data and a Mars-adapted climate model to run 64 simulations of a Gale crater lake and found that thin, seasonally disappearing ice lids could thermally insulate liquid water for decades under cold early-Mars conditions.

A YouTuber demonstrated a handheld device that sends a narrow ultrasonic beam which the air demodulates to produce audible sound only within the beam; the video explains the carrier-wave method and notes lingering questions about safety standards for high-power ultrasound.

A prehistoric dugout canoe recovered at Lake Mendota is reported as about 5,200 years old, and officials link the discoveries to Ho-Chunk ancestral ties and ceremonial significance.

A new study reviewed eight climate intervention methods and found each could alter ocean chemistry and ecosystems; electrochemical ocean alkalinity enhancement showed the lowest direct risk among the approaches reviewed, but no method is free of uncertainty and more research is needed before large-scale ocean deployment.

Researchers introduced a framework called 'marine darkwaves' to identify short, intense periods of underwater darkness that in some cases nearly eliminate light reaching the seafloor, and they found events lasting days to months in California and New Zealand data.

The World Meteorological Organization says 2025 ranked among the three warmest years on record, extending an 11-year run of unusually high global temperatures.

Several national and international climate agencies report that 2025 ranked as the second- or third-warmest year on record, with the last three years the warmest on record and greenhouse gas concentrations rising.

Forecasters say an Arctic blast may push cold air into far northern Florida this weekend, with a chance of a rain-and-snow mix and little to no accumulation. Freeze watches are in effect across much of northern and central Florida for late Thursday through Friday morning.

Human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels, are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures, and 2024 was recorded as the hottest year, with that calendar year exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

UC Berkeley's SETI@home project ran from 1999 to 2020, using volunteers' home computers to analyze Arecibo radio data and collecting more than 12 billion potential signals; researchers have narrowed the results to 100 radio candidates that merit closer study.

A Karolinska Institutet study in Nature Communications shows that the frequency of alpha waves in the parietal cortex affects how precisely people judge timing between sight and touch, shaping the sense that a body part belongs to oneself; shifting alpha frequency with mild electrical stimulation altered these timing judgments.

A Nature study reports that disturbances in tropical humid forests caused nearly 16 billion tonnes of carbon loss from 1990 to 2020, and that small-scale clearings — about 5% of disturbed area — accounted for 56% of net carbon losses.

Greenland's ice sheet is losing mass rapidly, with scientists reporting 105 billion metric tons lost in the 12 months ending Aug. 31, 2025, and longer-term thinning that has reduced ice area since the 1980s; U.S., Greenland and Danish officials are due to meet about related issues.

The EPA announced it will stop assigning dollar values to health benefits from fine particles (PM2.5) and ozone in its regulatory analyses, a change written into a new rule that relaxes turbine-related standards at fossil-fuel power plants.

China banned residential coal heating in much of Hebei to cut winter pollution, and Beijing officials report large improvements in air quality; at the same time, many rural residents say subsidies were cut this winter and they face higher heating bills and rationed heat.

Copernicus data from ECMWF shows 2025 ranked as the third-warmest year on record with a global average surface air temperature of 14.97°C, and the 2023–2025 three‑year mean exceeded the 1.5°C warming threshold relative to pre‑industrial levels.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy signed a memorandum to collaborate on research and development of a fission surface power system for the Moon, with a goal of deploying a lunar surface reactor by 2030.

Pandora launched on January 11 and will observe exoplanets and their host stars to determine whether detected molecules originate in planetary atmospheres or in starlight.

The EPA announced it will no longer monetize health harms from fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone when assessing regulations, saying current models do not reliably support dollar estimates; critics say that choice could make it easier to relax pollution limits.