Future Arctic winter sea ice is likely to shrink by around 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) more than previously thought, after researchers used clues from a warm period 6,000 years ago to improve the reliability of climate models.
The decisive penalty kick in a final, match point in tennis or the last attempt in a competition: When a lot is at stake, even a well-practiced performance can suddenly break down. Yet pressure does not necessarily impair performance. Some people perform at their best precisely in the moments that matter most. Existing accounts can only partly explain why.
In 2023, professor Damian Helbling was getting a lot of calls and emails from local residents. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had just announced regulations to limit per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—some of which have been linked to cancers and other negative health effects—in drinking water. Ithacans and others in the region wanted to know about levels in the ponds, lakes, streams and creeks in their proverbial backyards.
For more than 20 years, Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA) has protected wildlife that are at risk of being lost from Canadian lands and waters. Once a species is listed as extirpated, endangered or threatened under the act, it becomes illegal to kill, harm or capture it or damage its residences. Its critical habitat must also be protected, at least on federal land.
Manhattan's Upper West Side has been reveling in the company of its latest celebrities: A family of barn owls nested in a water tower atop a building near Central Park.
Scientists have learned a lot about what happens to the human body as we age. But there's still much to learn about how other species age, including dogs. Even carrying extra weight could affect a dog's cognitive health. Alexandra Genualdi, a student at Oklahoma State University who presented her research in September at the American Physiological Society's 2026 Comparative Physiology conference in Orlando, talks about her efforts to learn more.
Female protagonists in animated films have come a long way over the past several decades. Take the 1959 movie "Sleeping Beauty": Soft-spoken and vulnerable, Princess Aurora is cursed as an infant by the evil fairy Maleficent and ultimately saved not by her own wits, but by a prince's kiss.
Researchers at the University of Miami have identified a group of previously unknown viruses that bridge an evolutionary gap between viruses and cellular protein compartments, a discovery with implications for both biotechnology and scientists' understanding of the origins of life.
NASA's Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the moon's surface.
Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park in New Mexico have provided researchers an opportunity to refine the age of the oldest human footprints in North America and establish a deeper understanding of the landscape and environmental conditions at the time humans were present there.
