Jay Inslee Jay Inslee, exiting the presidential race, reflects on his campaignVox - David RobertsWashington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday that he is ending his campaign for the presidency. He did not reach the Democratic National Committee’s polling threshold of 2 percent in time to qualify
Wildfires Wildfires are burning around the world. The most alarming is in the Amazon rainforest.Vox - Umair IrfanMajor wildfires are burning all over the world right now. More than 21,000 square miles of forest have gone up in flames in Siberia this month, putting Russia on track for its worst year on record for
EPA The 6 things you most need to know about Trump’s new climate planVox - David RobertsIn June, the Trump administration unveiled its proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Last week, a coalition of 29
Play buttonMethane Fracking may be a bigger climate problem than we thoughtVox - David RobertsAs greenhouse gases go, methane gets less attention than carbon dioxide, but it is a key contributor to climate change. Methane doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2 and is reabsorbed into terrestrial
U.S. Politics Senators call for closing “loopholes” that make health care fraud easyVox - Marshall AllenFollowing a detailed account of how scam artists can easily gain access to health care cash, six Democratic senators this week sent a letter to federal regulators urging them to “close loopholes” that
Siberia Russian cities are still choking under smoke from massive Siberian wildfiresVox - Umair IrfanRussia is now on track to have a record year for wildfires as hundreds of blazes torch huge swaths of Siberia for the third month in a row after an unusually hot and dry summer left forests primed to The
Conspiracies Social media’s conspiracy theory problem isn’t going awayVox - Brian ResnickAfter convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in jail this past weekend, conspiracy theories surrounding his death almost immediately jumped to the top of Twitter’s trending recommendation
Autism Fake autism treatments show the lengths parents will go to “cure” their kidsVox - Sarah KurchakLike many autistic people, I don’t handle background noise well. My senses and brain can’t separate it from any other sounds. It’s often just as loud as, if not louder than, what I’m trying to listen And
U.S. Politics The GOP’s climate change dilemmaVox - David RobertsLast month, Senate Democrats held a hearing to discuss the vexing subject of conservatives and climate change. The Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, chaired by Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, invited
Fish The fish tube is more than a meme. It could help save ecosystems.Vox - Aja RomanoHumans everywhere were captivated over the weekend by a viral video of salmon being transported from one estuary to another through a giant overland pneumatic tube — a.k.a. the “fish tube.” The jaunty
Biohacking Is it time to regulate biohacking? California thinks so.Vox - Sigal SamuelCalifornia wants to make it clear that tinkering with your own genes is a “don’t try this at home” sort of thing. The state is making it illegal to sell a do-it-yourself genetic engineering kit unless
Biological Species The Endangered Species Act is incredibly popular and effective. Trump is weakening it anyway.Vox - Brian ResnickIn May, a United Nations panel on biodiversity released a massive, troubling report on the state of the world’s animals. The bottom line: As many as 1 million species are now at risk of extinction if don’t
Electric Vehicles Colorado’s most powerful climate tool isn’t what you thinkVox - David RobertsThe Colorado legislature has had an extraordinarily productive year so far, passing a stunning array of climate and clean energy bills covering everything from clean electricity to utilities, energy efficiency,
Science Getting to 100% renewables requires cheap energy storage. But how cheap?Vox - David RobertsOne of the most heated and interesting debates in the energy world today has to do with how far the US can get on carbon-free renewable energy alone. One faction believes that renewables can supply 100
Perseids The Perseid meteor shower is the best of the year. Here’s how to watch.Vox - Brian ResnickEvery year in August, the Swift-Tuttle comet puts on a brilliant show in the night sky. When the Earth plows into its wake, tiny sand- and pea-sized bits of debris hit our atmosphere at 132,000 miles hour,
Science 4 ways to be smarter about land use to fight climate changeVox - Umair IrfanThe huge new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on land use is finally out. The conclusions are stark: We are changing the Earth’s lands so drastically that our survival is now Though
Scooters We regret to inform you that scooters aren’t actually good for the environmentVox - Sigal SamuelCompanies like Bird and Lime have been selling us a promise about their electric scooters: They’re great for the planet! For the most part, we’ve enthusiastically embraced this notion, and it’s helped
Science Study: many of the “oldest” people in the world may not be as old as we thinkVox - Kelsey PiperWe’ve long been obsessed with the super-elderly. How do some people make it to 100 or even 110 years old? Why do some regions — say, Sardinia, Italy, or Okinawa, Japan —produce dozens of these “supercentenarians”
Science Can we trust our own eyes? Motivated perception, explained.Vox - Brian ResnickThe Dartmouth vs. Princeton football game of November 1951 was, by all accounts, brutal. A Princeton player broke his nose. A Dartmouth player broke his leg. But in the aftermath, each side blamed the
Science This nonprofit just took a big step to make kidney donation in the US easierVox - Dylan MatthewsReducing deaths from kidney disease is a crucially important public health goal. I’m biased, as someone who’s donated a kidney, but the numbers are pretty clear: About 40,000 people die every year in US
Science The key to a cleaner power grid is changing when we use energyVox - David RobertsFor most of the 100-plus years that the electricity grid has been around, grid managers had control over the supply of power but not the demand for it. Like the weather, or the tides, electricity consumption
U.S. Politics Why we should let more foreign doctors practice in AmericaVox - Perrie BriskinKristina Sokolovska Konieczny studied medicine for six years so she could become a primary care doctor, then spent three years practicing family medicine. She worked in various places — at a public hospital,
Tardigrades Tardigrades, the toughest animals on Earth, have crash-landed on the moonVox - Brian ResnickIn 1983, a team of Japanese scientists on a journey through Antarctica happened upon a pile of moss harboring a strange, strange creature. Living in the moss were tardigrades, millimeter-long animals resembled
Gun Control This cartoon explains why predicting a mass shooting is impossibleVox - Brian ResnickIn the wake of mass shootings, many people wonder how they could have been prevented. Were there warning signs that should have been heeded? Was the person mentally ill? Did they hold extremist views?
Facebook Facebook is building tech to read your mind. The ethical implications are staggering.Vox - Sigal SamuelFacebook wants to create a device that can read your mind — literally. It’s funding research on brain-machine interfaces that can pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words,
Play buttonScience How scientists colorize photos of spaceVox - Coleman LowndesThe Hubble Space Telescope only takes photos in black and white. To make those beautiful space photos you’ve probably seen, scientists add the color later, using a technique developed around the turn the
Play buttonJay Inslee Why Jay Inslee picked a fight with Joe Biden on climate changeVox - David RobertsDuring Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate, there was an extended and relatively substantive exchange on the subject climate change, at least by the standards of the televised-debate genre. But
Loneliness 22 percent of millennials say they have “no friends”Vox - Brian ResnickToday, members of the millennial generation are ages 23 to 38. These ought to be prime years of careers taking off and starting families, before joints really begin to ache. Yet as a recent poll and some
U.S. Politics The Democratic debates neglected one of America’s biggest public health crisesVox - German LopezWe’ve now had four nights of Democratic debates — and in all that time, we’ve learned next to nothing about what any of the candidates want to do about America’s opioid epidemic, one of the worst public
