The oil-dependent world is in crisis. Ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz – through which more than a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas flow – is at a virtual standstill. Oil prices have climbed, briefly topping US$119 a barrel.

The largest release of oil from countries’ ...Read more

Primatologist Birutė Galdikas died on March 24, 2026, and an era of science that began in the forests of Tanzania, Rwanda and Borneo studying humanity’s closest living relatives more than half a century ago is coming quietly to a close. Her passing marks more than the loss of a scientist – it’s the end of one of the most extraordinary ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Before the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission travel farther from Earth than any human ever has, they first have to get to the launch site.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Glover are set to arrive from Houston today at Kennedy Space Center ...Read more

Most people have some amount of Neanderthal DNA from the extinct cousins of modern humans who lived in Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago. New research on available Neanderthal genetic material shows a strong bias toward male Neanderthals mating with Homo sapiens women.

It’s unclear why Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Imagine waking up early, eager to peep dazzling carpets of brilliant orange flowers at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Instagram posts promised a spectacle.

You drive to the reserve north of Los Angeles, but the rolling hills aren’t alive with color.

Bummer. The bloom is over.

Thanks to AI, and a local ...Read more

The fight against infectious disease is a race against evolution. Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Viruses adapt to spread more quickly. Diseases transmitted by insects present another evolutionary front: Insects themselves can evolve resistance to the poisons that people use to kill them.

In particular, the mosquito-borne ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Netflix prices in the U.S. are going up — again.

For the second time in a little over a year, the streaming service will demand a few more dollars a month from its subscribers. Netflix's standard plan with ads will now cost $8.99, up $1. Both the prices for the standard plan with no ads and the premium plan are rising by $2, ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Reports of a mystery rocket seen launching from Cape Canaveral on Thursday could be another hypersonic missile test for the Department of Defense.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security had posted navigational warnings earlier this week with air and maritime space keep-out zones similar to previous hypersonic...Read more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Nine people will take the ride to the top of the launch tower for the Artemis II moon mission, but only five will ride back down.

That’s if NASA’s plans to launch four astronauts on board the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System rocket go as planned. Targeting liftoff as early as next Wednesday, the quartet...Read more

Paul Ehrlich opened his 1968 book “The Population Bomb” with a scene recounting returning to his hotel through a crowded Delhi neighborhood on a stifling night in the mid-1960s. He described the physical sensation of overpopulation: people eating, washing, arguing, begging – “people, people, people, people.”

From that ...Read more

What’s the difference between a Roomba and “The Jetsons” robot maid, Rosie? It’s not a joke, it’s a challenge University of Maryland doctoral student Seungjae “Jay” Lee is tackling in hopes of training real-world domestic robots to master housekeeping tasks.

His work focuses on incorporating the vast reservoir of web videos to ...Read more

The disruptions from the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran spread quickly to commercial aircraft, shipping lanes and the world’s energy supply. Those repercussions have already hit fuel costs, including for motorists, truckers and fishermen, and are set to spread even more widely, to packaging, household goods, appliances, medicines and ...Read more

TOKYO — Sony’s new LinkBuds Clip may not be the best-sounding earbuds in the world, and their little case could be mistaken for a ring box, but there are at least two things that make them stand out from the crowded market of earbuds.

Unlike most earbuds and headphones these days, they're not pretending to let you keep the world out. In ...Read more

Meta said its road to the metaverse ran through Seattle. Recent layoffs point to a dead end.

Meta laid off hundreds of employees Wednesday, about two months after a sweeping workforce reduction at the company.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed media reports that the Menlo Park, Calif.-based tech giant's latest cuts hit several divisions, including...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine days in one of the country’s most closely watched civil trials, jurors handed down a landmark decision in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, finding Instagram and YouTube responsible for the suffering of a Chico ...Read more

Across much of the Western United States, winter 2026 was the year the snow never came. Many ski resorts got by with snowmaking but shut down their winter operations early. Fire officials and water supply managers are worried about summer.

Where I live in Boise, Idaho, temperatures hit the low 80s Fahrenheit (high-20s Celsius) in mid-...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine days, jurors handed down a landmark decision in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, finding Instagram and YouTube responsible for the suffering of a Chico woman who charged the platform was built to addict young users ...Read more

BALTIMORE — In 1998, Bruce Willis saved the world by blowing up an asteroid threat in “Armageddon.” In 2022, NASA did the real thing, crashing a spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos to prove that we don’t have to end up like the dinosaurs.

On March 6, scientists from Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and ...Read more

Apple has introduced a new low-cost laptop called the MacBook Neo.

I know Apple laptop and “low cost” usually don’t go together. Apple has never been a company known for inexpensive hardware.

Previously, Apple’s lowest price laptop was the MacBook Air (starting at $1,099), but the new $599 Neo is a full $500 cheaper.

So, why is the ...Read more

Aiper, a world leader in smart robotic pool cleaners (and smart yard innovations), launched Aiper Experts Duo, with the EcoSurfer S2 and the Scuba V3 robotic pool cleaners, with an impressive display and demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The system is an intelligent two-robot system, working completely hands-free to ...Read more