The beginning of the night at the McDonald Observatory can be frantic. Jason Young, a visiting lecturer in astronomy at Mount Holyoke, starts by tracking the steadiness of the atmosphere, looking at “standard” stars to calibrate the Harlan J. Smith Telescope. He makes sure the telescope’s iconic white dome stays on track, checks that there […]
The planet lost more than 1 billion acres of forest between 1960 and 2019, according to a new study published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters. This deforestation happened faster than trees could replenish, amounting to a net loss of about 200 million acres of forestland over the past 60 years, an area […]
This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, Indian Country Today, and High Country News. The Global Indigenous Youth Caucus on Thursday demanded that the United Nations send investigators to Hawaii to probe the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, a series of World War II-era […]
The apple trees looked half-dead. They formed a neat line in a scrubby lot on a quiet neighborhood street. I felt compelled to pat their scrawny trunks and say, “It’s going to be OK.” The bare branches shook in the hard wind — a reminder that this bleak Sunday morning was one I’d have otherwise spent […]
Although COVID-19’s precise origins may always remain a mystery, the disease that has claimed more than 6 million lives, halted global economies, and caused immense suffering most likely came from a bat. The scientific term for the phenomenon in which a virus jumps from one species to another is “viral spillover.” A new study shows […]