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

Rockstar has started taking preorders for “Grand Theft Auto VI,” but the game is still months away from its Nov. 19 launch. In the meantime, the ridiculously hyped title has warped the video game calendar.

That’s what 13 years between sequels does to an industry and fanbase. The demand has generated its own undeniable gravity, and ...Read more

As the deadly New World screwworm spreads through Texas, posing significant risk to the U.S. cattle herd, experts are still puzzling over the mystery of how it got there.

The parasite fly’s larvae, which feeds within the wounds of warm-blooded animals, was first detected in a calf in Zavala County at the start of last month, marking the first...Read more

Zoom, the San Jose, California-based company known for its video conferencing platform, has agreed to purchase a Seattle startup as it tries to position itself as an artificial intelligence-powered workplace.

Four Seattle-area tech workers founded the startup, called Common Room, in 2020. The company offers a sales and marketing platform that ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — An environmental justice group is suing California’s top air regulator over its sweeping overhaul of the state’s cap-and-invest carbon market program, claiming it illegally rushed a last-minute incentive for industrial polluters.

The lawsuit from the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment alleges that the California ...Read more

Microsoft Corp., looking to reduce AI costs, is starting to replace OpenAI and Anthropic with its own models in software products like Excel and Outlook.

Tens of thousands of AI prompts in the widely used spreadsheet and email applications are now being completed each week with Microsoft’s internally built MAI models, according to a person ...Read more

NASA’s $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has risen from its horizontal slumber at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, ahead of its planned launch next month.

The planet hunter, which will seek to unravel the mysteries of dark energy in the universe with infrared sensing, had made the trip to KSC in June from NASA’s...Read more

The DNA in a single cup of water can track wildlife, monitor pollution and survey pathogens in waterways and their surroundings, all at the same time.

DNA is contained in each cell of every plant, animal, fungus and microbe. It carries the genetic instructions needed for an organism’s survival, growth and function, and the DNA of ...Read more

A severe winter snow drought has left snowpack levels far below normal across the American West in 2026. Without a slow-melting blanket of snow to keep the soil and forests moist, alpine vegetation is drying into a tinderbox earlier than normal and ramping up the fire risk.

The historic dryness means electric utilities are facing a ...Read more

Reddit Inc. is battling a new kind of spam: stealth marketing content created by brands that want to get mentioned by popular artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini.

OpenAI and Alphabet Inc., whose AI tools formulate responses and recommendations by drawing on vast amounts of internet information, have content deals with ...Read more

Boeing’s Starliner costs and delays remain the target of the latest audit from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, but remains a cheaper option for the agency than relying solely on SpaceX for its commercial crew needs.

The audit released June 30 dinged the beleaguered spacecraft’s tumultuous and still uncertain path toward ...Read more

Many major tech companies have pledged to pay their fair share of the costs associated with generating and transmitting more electricity to serve large data centers. But ratepayers across the United States are worried about the potential costs they might have to bear. That’s because it’s not immediately clear how the cost of data centers�...Read more

Spring migration has taken flight, but with rising temperatures and shifting seasons, birds are adjusting when and how they migrate to keep up with a rapidly warming climate.

Morgan Tingley, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, studies the effects of climate change on birds.

...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Fireworks can frighten animals and send them scattering, but Jackie and Shadow's eaglets apparently are made of sterner stuff.

Chicks Luna and Sandy were seen safe and sound Sunday morning around 6 a.m. on the popular livestream nest cam aimed at their Big Bear pine tree, snacking on fish in the family aerie.

Mom and Dad did ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — As extreme heat smothered the eastern United States over the July Fourth weekend and Europe struggled with its own deadly heat wave, experts warned that more record high temperatures could be in store for this year because of a strengthening El Niño.

"We know that temperatures are warming in the long term, linked to human-...Read more

Hours after savoring that perfectly grilled steak on a beautiful summer evening, your body turns traitor, declaring war on the very meal you just enjoyed. You begin to feel excruciating itchiness, pain or even swelling that can escalate to the point of requiring emergency care.

The culprit isn’t food poisoning – it’s the fallout...Read more

Illinois’ tick season may be starting earlier, lasting longer and creeping into new corners of the state, scientists and researchers say.

Milder winters and earlier springs are helping ticks survive in greater numbers, while doctors report earlier cases of tick-borne illnesses this year than in previous seasons. And ticks aren’t only in ...Read more