The lithium-ion batteries that supply much of today’s clean energy come with some infamous drawbacks, from fire risk to reliance on foreign mining.

Alternatives have been slow to get off the ground.

But California start-up Peak Energy announced Wednesday it’s building a factory in Sacramento that will be the first in the U.S. to make ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The University of California, San Diego has developed a rudimentary way to detect when and where coastal landslides are likely to occur, which could lead to an early warning system for a phenomenon that has killed 19 people in greater San Diego since the 1940s.

Scientists say in a study released Thursday they were able to predict ...Read more

Household water costs could nearly double in some American cities, new research suggests, as climate change further stresses municipal water systems.

Researchers at Stanford University and other institutions studied how a hotter, drier climate is poised to spike water bills for residents of Santa Cruz, California, in a peer-reviewed study ...Read more

Micron Technology Inc. plans to increase its spending on new plants in the U.S. to $250 billion to help meet unprecedented demand for its memory chips fueled by the global artificial intelligence boom.

The funds would add $50 billion to the company’s previously announced commitment of $200 billion toward expanding domestic chipmaking that ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch using a booster that has now flown three dozen times created a “space jellyfish” effect in the predawn skies over Florida on Thursday.

The rocket lifted off at 5:25 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 on the Starlink 10-42 mission with 29 more of the company’s...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The return of the wolf in California has been met with joy by conservationists, who delight in the improbable population rebound, and with fury by ranchers who bemoan the toll on their cattle.

Now, a new study on the diet of gray wolves suggests that the population regrowth is a result of the animals feasting on cattle, as their...Read more

President Donald Trump has shown the immense power of the executive branch to stymie offshore wind development, as nearly all projects are in waters where federal agencies operate as the landlord.

Now, as the feds block new permits and dangle billion-dollar buyout offers to convince developers to walk away from their projects, state leaders are...Read more

I’m lucky that I get to review lots of cool new gadgets, both big and small.

Larger or more complex things usually have enough going on that they take up all the writing space I am assigned, but sometimes I accumulate smaller or simpler gadgets, and I’ve learned to group those together.

This week we are looking at a few smaller gadgets.

...Read more

A mild earthquake occurred off the shore of the northern suburbs Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

A 2.9 earthquake was recorded in Lake Michigan near the Illinois-Wisconsin border at around 2:38 p.m., the United States Geological Survey reported.

The earthquake, which stretched about 3.1 miles deep, took place 13.8 miles northeast of ...Read more

The warning bells are ringing for another potentially killer season for Florida’s beleaguered coral reefs, sending reef restoration companies scrambling to protect their brood.

While the atmospheric phenomena of El Niño is linked to a quieter hurricane season this year, it’s also cranking the thermostat on Florida’s waters. That’s bad ...Read more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The last time the four astronauts of Artemis II were together in Florida, they were taking a ride on the most powerful rocket to ever launch humans into space.

The quartet of NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, returned to the launch site ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Walking around Fells Point this week, Baltimore residents were greeted by the stench of rotting fish and sulfur as dead fish floated in the Inner Harbor in what has become a yearly trend.

These “fish kills” have been happening with increasing regularity. In a similar event last August, roughly 120,000 fish turned up dead in ...Read more

PARK CITY, Utah — If the early 20th-century auto revolution was sparked in Detroit by entrepreneurs like Ford, Dodge, and Sloan, the early 21st century has brought a new, digital auto revolution on America’s West Coast right out of a science fiction novel.

At its forefront are entrepreneurs like Sergei Brin of Google, Tesla’s Elon Musk, ...Read more

A growing nationwide shortage of high-skilled workers threatens to delay construction of billions of dollars in new semiconductor plants across the US and constrain future chip production unless the industry pools resources and the government keeps up funding, according to a new report.

The deficit is expected to be most acute in states such as...Read more

Across North America, in places such as Illinois, Iowa and Texas, farmers are busy growing the crops the world depends on for food, fuel and fiber.

But as their tractors roll across fields, a pressing concern weighs heavily on many farmers: the rising cost of synthetic fertilizers, widely considered essential for crop production.

...Read more

It’s pretty commonly known, and not very startling, that free-ranging cats eat birds and small rodents. But the degree to which they eat insects might surprise you.

We are biologists who for many years have been trying to figure out what feral or outdoor-roaming pet cats eat outside.

When domesticated cats – Felis catus �...Read more

PITTSBURGH -- What makes some teenagers more likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol? A new study from Pitt theorizes that one factor may be tied to their levels of dopamine, also known as “the pleasure chemical.”

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed a massive data set that followed substance use levels in...Read more

Upgrading from a basic thermostat to a smart thermostat offers many advantages, with the most significant being long-term energy savings. By optimizing your heating and cooling system, a smart thermostat can often pay for itself through lower utility bills. In addition, you can control your thermostat remotely from your smartphone; many models...Read more

This week my question comes from my own family. I had a text exchange with my brother-in-law who wrote, “We have at least one laptop that is broken, but we have information on it. What do we do?”

They actually had two old laptops, and they want to take them in for recycling. He was right to ask what to do about the information on the old ...Read more