Science

Melting glaciers can have profound effects on nations all over the world—from mountain communities to small island states. At the U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday, March 21, U.N. General Assembly President Philémon Yang closed the proceedings of the inaugural World Glacier Day with a stark warning: “We cannot afford to wait, we must act before the ice disappears…before our glaciers all disappear.”  Alphabetically arranged flags outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Credit: Joseph Griffiths  The event was held in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, a space used from the 1940s through the 1990s to oversee the decolonization of territories under the administration of the U.N. The location was symbolic, since the chamber has long been associated with international coop...

Thunderstorms over Indonesia, seen from the International Space StationNASA Earth Observatory / International Space Station (ISS) An AI weather program running for a single second on a desktop can match the accuracy of traditional forecasts that take hours or days on powerful supercomputers, claim its creators. Weather forecasting has, since the 1950s, relied on physics-based models that extrapolate from observations made using satellites, balloons and weather stations. But these calculations, known as numerical weather prediction (NWP), are extremely intensive and rely on vast, expensive and energy-hungry supercomputers. In recent years, researchers have tried to streamline this process by applying AI. Google scientists last year created an AI tool that could rep...

The French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson is remembered for, among other things, producing three curious automata in the 18th century. A poster from the time advertised them all side by side: a figure that played a real flute, another that banged a tambourine and a duck that gobbled up corn and seemingly turned it into pellets of… well, use your imagination. For physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern, based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland, these antiquated automata have a resonance with some of today’s most cutting-edge technology. Vaucanson’s inventions prefigured the industrial revolution, during which mechanisation went from being a quirky curiosity to a force that reshaped the globe. We may be at an analogous turning point today when it c...

As I ran the Austin Marathon recently, I thought about how this ancient ritual of traversing 26.2 miles brings communities together, promotes volunteerism and inspires people to root for complete strangers. Marathons are a celebration of human endurance and perseverance, but as an M.S. in Sustainability Science graduate, I couldn’t help but wonder: What is the environmental cost of this massive event? Thousands of paper cups and tiny plastic gel packs littered the streets, discarded by runners hydrating and sugaring up on the go. Medals, made of metal and ribbon, were handed out to every finisher—not to mention the overstock. The sheer amount of single-use materials—from bibs and timing chips to the plastic-wrapped recovery snacks and thermal blankets—raised questions about the sustaina...

Nuke Image Circle, 2024James Stanford The kaleidoscopic patterns in this artwork draw the eye towards its glowing centre. Despite its dreamy, hypnotic effect, however, the work has its roots in the terrifying reality of a nuclear bomb. Its creator, artist James Stanford, grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, near where more than 200 above-ground nuclear tests took place in the 1950s and 1960s. His new interpretive photography series, Atomic, draws from both the nuclear landscape of his childhood and his time as a technical illustrator for the US Atomic Energy Commission. The main image is Nuke Image Circle, 2024. Below, Stanford is shown beside Spectre Fission. James Stanford is shown beside Spectre FissionNephology LTD 2025 “With the Atomic series, I was trying to show both t...