Tag Archives: Research

A shift in the atmosphere Ms. Petrova’s return flight from Paris landed in Boston on the evening of Feb. 16. As the plane sat on the tarmac, she texted back and forth with Dr. Peshkin, trying to confirm how she should handle the package in customs. But by then, the passengers were already filing off the plane, he said, and …

On Thursday, researchers unveiled the most precise measurement yet of a neutrino, scaling down the maximum possible mass of the ghostly specks of matter that permeate our universe. The result, published in the journal Science, does not define the exact mass of a neutrino, just its upper limit. But the finding helps bring physicists closer to figuring out just what …

For decades, fishermen sailing off the coast of Taiwan have sometimes discovered fossils in their trawling nets: the bones of elephants, buffalo and other big mammals that lived tens of thousands of years ago, when the sea level was so low that Taiwan was linked to Asia by a land bridge. But in 2010, a Taiwanese paleontologist was presented with …

The Trump administration has cut funding and staffing at the program that oversees the federal government’s premier report on how global warming is affecting the country, raising concerns among scientists that the assessment is now in jeopardy. Congress requires the federal government to produce the report, formally known as the National Climate Assessment, every four years. It analyzes the effects …

During a recent five-year period, a substantial portion of maternal deaths in America — almost one-third — took place more than six weeks after childbirth, at a time when most new mothers think they are in the clear, researchers reported on Wednesday. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, is one of the first to track maternal health complications during …

Xavier Le Pichon, a French geophysicist whose pioneering model of the earth’s tectonic plates helped revolutionize how scientists understand movements of the earth’s crust, died on March 22 at his home in Sisteron, in the south of France. He was 87. His death was announced in a statement by the Collège de France, France’s highest educational institution, where Dr. Le …

The far side of the moon — the part that always faces away from Earth — is mysteriously distinct from the near side. It is pockmarked with more craters and has a thicker crust and less maria, or plains where lava once formed. Now, scientists say that difference could be more than skin deep. Using a lunar sample obtained last …

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken of an “existential threat” that he said can destroy the nation. “We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” Mr. Kennedy said at a hearing in January before the Senate confirmed him as the secretary of Health and Human Services. And on Monday he is starting a tour in …

Drug-resistant gonorrhea, a form of the widespread sexually transmitted infection, is considered an urgent health threat worldwide. The United States has just lost its ability to detect it. Among the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees fired on Tuesday were 77 scientists who, among other work, gathered samples of gonorrhea and other S.T.I.s from labs nationwide, analyzed the genetic …

When territorial animals are confronted by intruders, they instinctively protect their turf — no matter how small. For warty birch caterpillars, that means patrolling one of the tiniest territories on Earth: the tips of birch leaves. Scientists observed the caterpillars warding off intruders with loud vibrations that advertise they are in command of a domain that stretches a few millimeters …