Stories by Meghan Bartels

Hurricane Lee is no longer a Category 5 storm but has grown in size as it has trekked farther north

Scientists analyzed nine so-called planetary boundaries and found humans are currently transgressing six

Within days of each other, Hurricane Jova in the Pacific and Hurricane Lee in the Atlantic rapidly ballooned into Category 5 storms

Discovered only last month, Comet Nishimura is drawing attention before close approaches to the sun and Earth in the coming weeks

Often nicknamed “making biscuits,” kneading is a good sign that your cat is happy, experts say

Floodwaters from hurricanes, sea-level rise, a burst dam or other causes can contain a nasty mix of pathogens, chemicals and debris

After avian influenza killed 21 endangered California Condors, government officials are testing a vaccine that could protect the massive scavengers from infection

Record-low sea ice caused Emperor Penguin chicks to die across Antarctica last year. This year could be just as bad

When trees get too hot, energy production in their leaves breaks down

Minuscule amounts of uranium detected in the shells of turtles point to a new way to track such materials’ impacts on people and ecosystems

In the latest chapter of an ongoing “moon rush,” Russia’s Luna-25 mission will attempt the nation’s first lunar landing in nearly 50 years

At Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits, scientists found they could watch large mammals disappear from the fossil record—and could trace the ecosystem through the catastrophe

Smoke from wildfires that have been exacerbated by climate change is complicating the picture of air pollution in the U.S.

Researchers set out to calculate how much of Earth’s life dwells in the planet’s least admired environment

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says a paleontologist not involved in the discovery of a 40-million-year-old fossilized whale

A glitch may have silenced NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft until mid-October—but a “heartbeat” signal offers hope for reestablishing contact earlier

Malaria grabs headlines, but U.S. residents are more likely to encounter West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses

An international team of scientists says nematodes found in Siberian permafrost are 46,000 years old and survived using techniques similar to those of a modern lab favorite

Revisiting the precious lunar samples on Earth suggests that some areas of the moon’s surface might be older than scientists once thought

Before leading the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer co-authored a paper explaining that the most massive stars must eventually become what we would now call a black hole

A trio of solar flares from a departing sunspot include one major flare that lasted several hours

Researchers across Europe have found bizarre nests bristling with the sharp metal stakes cities use to repel birds

Just seeing nature in VR brings some health benefits—and helps scientists learn why we need the real thing

“If, by some chance, there’s another being out there that might connect to it, I wanted them to know that regardless of how it may seem sometimes, we love this Earth,” says poet Ada Limón about her poem