Microsoft Corp. dramatically cut back investments in carbon removals in the first half of the year, as it ratchets up spending on artificial intelligence.

The company bought 8.55 million metric tons of carbon removal credits in the year through mid-July, which is about 80% less than it purchased over the same period in 2025, according to ...Read more

Meta Platforms Inc. released a long-awaited artificial intelligence model on Monday, a milestone that will test whether its multibillion-dollar push to rebuild its AI organization has improved its technology enough to compete among leaders.

Known as Muse Wonder, the new model is the company’s most capable since Meta Chief Executive Officer ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX is set to launch a cargo mission to the International Space Station before dawn Tuesday that could bring a sonic boom to Central Florida.

A Falcon 9 rocket on the CRS-35 mission topped with a crew Dragon spacecraft is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:33 a.m. ...Read more

From an airplane, most of the glaciers of the Rocky Mountain West look like small patches of white nestled into rugged landscape where the topography folds. The white is the snow cover, and lower down you can see the gray-blue bare ice.

In the middle of the 20th century, over 1,450 glaciers could be found in the contiguous U.S. ...Read more

California isn’t a place most Americans associate with tropical weather, but it’s taking a beating in 2026 from one of the most active eastern Pacific hurricane seasons in modern history.

For the second time ever, national forecasters issued a tropical storm watch for Southern California as Tropical Storm Rachel headed toward the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The University of California, San Diego has paused at least five clinical trials designed to cure or control HIV after the National Institutes of Health issued guidance last week that new enrollments should be put on hold.

The nation’s foremost research funding agency told scientists “they should temporarily hold off on ...Read more

When Belgian American particle physicist Francis Halzen was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in physics “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin,” it was a reminder that for more than a century, scientists have treated Antarctica’s environments as ...Read more

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

How much rain can a hurricane make, and how much do big versus small hurricanes make? – Naarah, age 8, Pittsburgh

Hurricanes can produce enormous amounts of rain, adding up...Read more

I recently went diving off Kawaihae on Hawaii’s Big Island. The water was bathtub warm, about 85 degrees, with an impressive 80 feet of visibility which meant you could see how little of the reef ecosystem was left. The coral was dead, just a few shoaling fish moving through the rocky structures that remained. It wasn’t my first encounter ...Read more

It’s 9:15 in the morning. The wind is roaring at 110 miles per hour (177 kph); the sound is deafening. Dust swirls through the air. We are watching a single-wide manufactured home rock back and forth, as it is pounded by turbulent wind.

Then, in an instant, the screws shear off and the entire unit tumbles backward, rolling two full ...Read more

You have probably noticed it on a hot summer day: A basement feels cool even when the air outside is baking. The ground does not heat up and cool down as fast as the air does. A few hundred feet down, it stays close to the local yearly average all year, which can be around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 Celsius).

In Verona, Wisconsin, the ...Read more

Every autumn, homeowners and gardeners tend to engage in a familiar ritual. As trees shed their leaves, people drag out rakes, leaf blowers and lawn bags to strip their yards bare before winter arrives.

It is a tidy habit rooted in aesthetics, but ecologically, clearing away fallen leaves strips the very foundation of local ecosystems...Read more

Hurricane Isaias shattered the peace of one of the quietest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record as it grew into 2026’s first Atlantic hurricane and headed for the northern Gulf Coast, with landfall expected late on Oct. 9 or early Oct. 10.

Coastal residents and store owners in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle quickly began ...Read more

The famed railroad line along the San Clemente coast has found itself on the endangered list amid a relentless assault from rising seas and punishing surf.

Transportation experts have long spoken about the possibility of relocating the tracks in the area, but the California State Transportation Agency is expected to launch a study before year's...Read more

A nearly eight-month stint aboard the International Space Station came to a splashing end for NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 on Thursday, when their recovery vessel safely splashed down off the coast of Los Angeles.

The four crew members spent 237 days living and working inside the space station — advancing scientific research while traveling more ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- It didn’t look like much. Five red and yellow cloth sails, strung up between streetlights in Exposition Park, bridging the road between the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and the Coliseum. But it was 103 degrees outside, and thousands of people were on the move, headed for Saturday’s USC Homecoming game.

The sails created ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Robots demonstrating dance moves made popular by the late entertainer Michael Jackson, mini-catapults sending plastic gourds soaring toward a cauldron, paper airplane competitions and ice cream frozen by liquid nitrogen were among the demonstrations on offer at the fifth annual University of Chicago South Side Science Festival.

...Read more

Federal wildlife managers euthanized 28,000 animals in California in 2025 and dispersed about 1 million more as part of a nationwide program meant to control invasive species and minimize danger to people, pets and livestock, new data shows.

The removals by a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture — which nationwide involved killing 2...Read more

The Trump administration is injecting more than $100 million into education programs for American researchers in STEM fields, as federal policies stanch the flow of foreign scientists to the U.S. and policymakers focus on an AI arms race with China.

The initiative, which President Donald Trump is set to announce at a White House summit on ...Read more

NORTHAMPTON COUNTY — Oyster grower Alex Lambert had one day’s notice that an algal bloom was heading toward his 4,000-basket farm. It could be years before scientists know why.

A local grower messaged Lambert on Sept. 17, telling him discolored water was spotted in nearby creeks with suspicion it could be harmful to sea life like his ...Read more