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‘The Crawler’ is on the move ahead of Artemis 1 rocket rollout

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Everybody’s favorite giant rocket truck is back in action.  Today (March 11), NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 (CT-2) vehicle began to slowly “crawl” its way to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will pick up the agency’s Space Launch System megarocket and Orion spacecraft. The pair are set to launch … Read more

Your Houseplants Really Can Impact Indoor Air Quality, Depending on The Pollutant

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Indoor air quality can be significantly improved by houseplants, new research has shown – specifically in terms of removing nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from the air, a pollutant created from fuel burning that’s been linked to respiratory disease.   Potted plants are simple to install, affordable to buy, and potentially a genuinely effective option when it … Read more

Ukrainians Face Lasting Psychological Wounds from Russian Invasion

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The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. “Polina came to our bedroom awakened by the sound of explosions. I didn’t know and still don’t know what to tell her. Her eyes today are full of fear and terror; eyes of all of us.” Alina, a … Read more

Packs of Hunting Spiders Are Guided by Web Vibrations

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Pack hunting spiders exist in places other than your nightmares. While most spiders enjoy solitary lives, 20 of the roughly 50,000 known spider species live in colonies. One species, Anelosimus eximius, lives in extremely large colonies of up to 1,000 individual spiders that work together to build webs spanning several meters. When prey falls into their web, … Read more

What the EPA’s New Plans for Regulating Power Plants Mean for Carbon

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HOUSTON—EPA unveiled its plans yesterday for regulating the power sector, with greenhouse gas rules in a supporting role to limits on conventional pollution. Describing his agency’s regulatory blueprint at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference here, EPA Administrator Michael Regan argued that regulations that would be rolled out in the coming year for mercury, ozone, … Read more

Mars rover wraps survey of Jezero crater’s surprising volcanic floor | Science

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THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS—After a year exploring the floor of Mars’s Jezero crater, where it gathered seven—soon to be eight—chalk-size rock samples for return to Earth, NASA’s Perseverance rover is set to speed toward its longstanding target at the crater’s edge: the remnants of a delta, deposited by water billions of years ago, that may contain … Read more

A network of young scientists and doctors aims to rebuild Venezuela’s devastated public health system | Science

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A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 375, Issue 6585. The reconnaissance trip in western Venezuela was going smoothly—until a gunman took aim at their windshield. It was March 2019, and two infectious disease specialists, Alberto Paniz Mondolfi and Carlos Hernandez, were driving back to their headquarters from villages in Venezuela’s disease-ridden Portuguesa … Read more

Gaze in Awe at This Breathtaking Hubble Image of an Outburst From a Baby Star

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An epic outburst from a baby star still in the process of forming has been captured in a spectacular Hubble image. Roughly 1,250 light-years away, in the Orion molecular cloud star-forming region, jets from a protostar are punching through the cloud at supersonic speeds, heating the gas and causing it to glow brightly. The result … Read more

News at a glance: Hong Kong’s high COVID-19 death rate, Biden’s ‘test and treat,’ and a ResearchGate lawsuit | Science

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THERAPEUTICS Big COVID-19 trial notches another effective drug The world’s largest study of COVID-19 treatments has yielded another drug that can reduce mortality. On 3 March, researchers with the United Kingdom’s Recovery trial announced that baricitinib, an oral drug that dampens an overactive immune system and is commonly used by people with rheumatoid arthritis, reduced … Read more