Science

The Energy Transition Is in Full Swing. It's Not Happening Fast Enough

Even if you follow these things closely, it can be hard to understand where the world's fight against climate change stands. On the one hand, news abounds of the clean energy revolution, as wind farms...

By Justin Worland October 13, 2021

Why William Shatner's History-Making Spaceflight Is Something to Celebrate

The man who gave us Captain Kirk left the planet for real

By Jeffrey Kluger October 13, 2021

Boulders On Mars Suggest a Warm and Humid Past

Jezero Crater May have Benn Home to Life

By Jeffrey Kluger October 7, 2021

The World's First Malaria Vaccine Was Approved by the WHO

On Oct. 6, the World Health Organization recommended use of the first vaccine to fight malaria. The decision is momentous and highly anticipated for many reasons: among them is that this is the first vaccine...

By Raj Panjabi October 7, 2021

The Storytelling Genius of Jane Goodall and Why Intellectual Arguments Don't Change Behavior

The legendary primatologist has spent decades persuading us to change the way we treat animals and the planet, and she does it one story at a time.

By Susanna Schrobsdorff October 6, 2021

Duo Share Nobel Chemistry Prize for Work on Solar Cell Advances

Benjamin List, from the Max-Planck-Institut in Germany, and David MacMillan, a professor at Princeton University, won the award for developing “an ingenious tool” for building molecules

By Charles Daly / Bloomberg October 6, 2021

More Men Than Women Are Now Single

Almost a third of adult single men live with a parent

By Belinda Luscombe October 5, 2021

Biden Is Feeling the Climate Pressure As COP26 Looms

"People's worst fear is that...the political system in the United States can't deliver."

By Justin Worland October 5, 2021

How to Invest in Companies That Are Actually Helping the Environment

ESG funds—investment funds that are supposed to include companies that score the highest marks in environmental, social and governance factors—have become increasingly popular as more people look to put their money where their environmental concerns...

By Mark Dent October 5, 2021

What We Have In Common With Humans Of 23,000 Years Ago

For all of our 21st-century trappings, our human paths align across the millennia.

By Susanna Schrobsdorff October 4, 2021

Workers Accuse Bezos' Blue Origin of Sexism and Safety Risks

A group of more than 20 current and former employees are accusing Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket ship company of being a toxic work environment and not adhering to proper safety protocols. The workers claim...

By Associated Press October 1, 2021

U.S. Fishermen Are Making Their Last Stand Against Offshore Wind

“They are, in some sense, mutually exclusive.”

By Alejandro de la Garza September 30, 2021

The Enduring Hope of Jane Goodall

In the early years of World War II, when Jane Goodall was around 6 years old, she was often woken from her sleep by the blare of air-raid sirens. The sound warned that Nazi planes...

By Ciara Nugent September 30, 2021

Is Reusable Packaging Actually Better for the Environment?

When you toss a plastic bottle into your recycling bin, there’s no guarantee it actually gets recycled. In fact, odds are, it doesn’t. According to the World Economic Forum, just 14% of plastic packaging is...

By Jamie Ducharme September 28, 2021

EPA to Drastically Limit Hydrofluorocarbons Used in Refrigerators and Air Conditioners

The move intends to decrease U.S. production and use of the highly potent greenhouse gases by 85% over the next 15 years

By MATTHEW DALY/AP September 23, 2021

Meet the 14-Year-Old Earthshot Finalist Who Invented a Solar Ironing Cart

Vinisha Umashankar is the youngest of 15 finalists for a £1 million award launched by Prince William

By Abhishyant Kidangoor September 23, 2021

Richard Powers on His New Novel, 'Bewilderment'

"I think the book holds open the possibility of a more joyous and a more rewarding way of being in the world"

By Elijah Wolfson September 23, 2021

What Would a Climate-Conscious Facebook Look Like?

'The initiatives that [Facebook] took are far too little, far too late.'

By Alejandro de la Garza September 22, 2021

Fossil Fuel Companies Say Hydrogen Made From Natural Gas Is a Climate Solution. But the Tech May Not Be Very Green

But the tech may not actually be very green

By Alejandro de la Garza September 22, 2021

Mars Was Always Destined to Die

The Red Planet was doomed from the start, a new study finds

By Jeffrey Kluger September 21, 2021

7 Questions With Italian Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

On private space travel, the 'Overview Effect' and more

By Jeffrey Kluger September 20, 2021

Many Green Funds Don't Live Up to Their Claims, Report Finds

Green investment funds are proliferating—and so is the dubious practice of "greenwashing"

By Amy Gunia September 20, 2021

Rich Nations to Miss Climate Fund Goal Even by 2025

It threatens the success of COP26 talks in November and Paris Agreement climate goals, Oxfam International said.

By John Ainger / Bloomberg September 20, 2021

Inspiration4 Crew Safely Splashes Down Off Florida Coast

'It was a heck of a ride for us'

By Marcia Dunn / Associated Press September 19, 2021

Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Drops by 36% After 12 Months

In a preprint study, the company announced the latest results from its ongoing study of vaccine efficacy

By Alice Park September 16, 2021

Liftoff! Inspiration4 Makes Space History

In the end, the camping trip up the flank of Mt. Rainier that the Inspiration4 crew made back in April may have done more than anything else to prepare them for tonight's successful launch into...

By Jeffrey Kluger September 15, 2021

Watch Live as the Inspiration4 Crew Launches to Space

Join TIME and Netflix as we bring you the launch of Inspiration4—the first-ever all-civilian orbital mission—live

By TIME Staff September 13, 2021

Warming Arctic Has U.S. Coast Guard Worried For the Country

A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. If you’d like sign up to receive this free once-a-week email, click here. One of the perks of going out on a...

By Aryn Baker September 13, 2021

Cities Have Firefighters and Trash Collectors. As the Climate Breaks Down, Do They Also Need Resilience Corps?

When Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans in early September, Tonya Freeman-Brown made the difficult decision to stay in the city. The 53 year-old and her family sheltered in an old brick hotel in the downtown...

By Ciara Nugent September 10, 2021

A Landslide Is Disrupting Denali National Park

The landslide, which is the result of permafrost thawing below the earth's surface, is damaging the park's only road.

By Andrew R. Chow / Denali, Alaska September 7, 2021

Seabed Mining May Solve Our Energy Crisis

At the bottom of the ocean lies a solution to the imminent battery shortage—at a great potential cost to biodiversity and life on earth.

By Aryn Baker September 7, 2021

How Can Cities Stop Subways Flooding in the Climate Crisis?

As the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed over the northeast Wednesday night, dumping a record-shattering 3.15 inches of rain on New York City in a single hour, water began to pour into the city’s subways....

By Ciara Nugent September 3, 2021

Nursing Home Vaccine Mandates Have a Tradeoff

Some two weeks before U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Aug. 18 that nursing homes must require their staff to get vaccinated or risk losing their Medicare and Medicaid funding, Genesis HealthCare, which manages about...

By Tara Law September 2, 2021

Can Hurricane Ida Move Public Opinion on Climate Change?

A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. If you’d like sign up to receive this free once-a-week email, click here. For many climate reporters, myself included, the arrival of...

By Justin Worland September 2, 2021

How Engineers Protected New Orleans From Hurricane Ida

"We were making the decisions so it wouldn’t come back to haunt us.”

By Alejandro de la Garza September 2, 2021

How Extreme Heat Hurts Jobs and the Economy

By driving down productivity, extreme heat could cost the U.S. economy $500 billion by 2050, per an Aug. 31 report by the Atlantic Council

By Ciara Nugent August 31, 2021

Yes, We Can Grow 1 Trillion Trees to Help Fight Climate Change

We are in a planetary emergency. Horrific heat waves and fires blaze across North America, Turkey and Russia. Extreme floods wreak destruction and cause death from Europe to Africa to Asia. Ocean temperatures and the...

By Jad Daley August 27, 2021

California's Wildfire Problem Could Be Solved by a Few Legal Changes

Some aspects of the crisis might be fixed with a paper and pen

By Alejandro de la Garza August 26, 2021

Fighting Wildfires, Siberian Villagers Use What They Have

Shovels, axes, and Soviet-era tractors make up much of their arsenal against the blazes

By Alejandro de la Garza August 26, 2021

I'm Supposed to Be in a Wedding. Will I Risk COVID-19?

A reader asks for help navigating a tricky question

By Tara Law August 24, 2021

UAE Unlikely to Set Net-Zero Emissions Target Before COP26

No major OPEC producer has announced a net-zero target, and the UAE was among the most likely to do so before the COP26 in Glasgow

By Verity Ratcliffe / Bloomberg August 24, 2021

In the Face of Climate Change, We Must Act So That We Can Feel Hopeful—Not the Other Way Around

In the 1850s, an American scientist named Eunice Foote deduced, based on experiments she’d conducted, that if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were higher, the planet would be warmer. And in the 1890s, a...

By Katharine Hayhoe August 12, 2021

Auto Workers May Be Left Behind As Industry Shifts Green

The AFL-CIO estimates that 25-30% of auto-making jobs could disappear in the industry’s transition

By Justin Worland August 11, 2021

Inspiration4: The Quest to Push the Limits of Space Travel

TIME Studios is producing the Netflix documentary series Countdown: Inspiration 4 Mission to Space, starting Sept. 6. Jared Isaacman is not likely to forget the day he almost died at 10,000 ft., back in 2011....

By Jeffrey Kluger August 10, 2021

Meet the All-Civilian Crew of Inspiration4

From a childhood cancer survivor to an aerospace engineer

By Jeffrey Kluger August 10, 2021

St. Jude's Fundraising Chief on Space and Pushing Boundaries

St. Jude has always been about pushing boundaries and taking what seems like impossible and making it possible.'

By Belinda Luscombe August 10, 2021

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NASA's Asteroid Hunter Lucy Soars Into Sky

Shutting Down Old Oil Rigs Is Harder—and More Expensive—Than it Sounds

Queen Elizabeth and Greta Thunberg Are Sending the Same Message on Climate Change. Will World Leaders Listen?

'It Moved Me to Tears.' William Shatner On Briefly Going Where Some Men Have Gone Before

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