May 6, 2025
As official research positions are lost to budget cuts, the work of citizen scientists to preserve federal forests is becoming more valuable.
By Austyn Gaffney and Anna Watts
Andrew Wozniak/University of Delaware; HOV Alvin Team; NSF; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Researchers diving in a submersible in the eastern Pacific realized that the landscape they had studied the day before had been glassed over by fresh lava.
By Maya Wei-Haas
Roy Scott/Science Source
Origins
What makes humans conscious? Scientists disagree, strongly, as one group of peacemakers discovered the hard way.
By Carl Zimmer
Photo illustration by Ben Denzer
Decades of wellness studies have identified a formula for happiness, but you won’t figure it out alone.
By Susan Dominus
Let us know how we’re doing at sciencenewsletter@nytimes.com.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
The continent’s leaders are hoping to benefit as the Trump administration cuts support for research and threatens universities such as Harvard and Columbia with the freezing of federal funds.
By Catherine Porter and Roger Cohen
Colleen Reichmuth, NMFS 23554
Trilobites
As she has aged, the pinniped’s rhythmic abilities have only improved.
By Gennaro Tomma
Jules Jacobs
A sunken calf’s disappearance created a mystery in murky waters near San Diego.
By Sruthi Gurudev and Jules Jacobs
Thomas Müller (HdA/MPIA) and Thavisha Dharmawardena (NYU)
The cloud, named Eos, is chock-full of molecular hydrogen and possibly rife with star-forming potential in the future.
By Katrina Miller
That budgetary change aligns with the priorities of Elon Musk, who founded his SpaceX rocket company two decades ago with dreams of one day sending colonists to Mars.
By Kenneth Chang
We naked apes need Band-Aids, but shedding the fur that speeds healing in other mammals may have helped us evolve other abilities.
By Elizabeth Preston
To many, atmospheric rivers are a West Coast phenomenon. But they’re also responsible for the devastating flooding that hit the Central United States in early April.
By Amy Graff
The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced the agency was “shifting its scientific expertise.”
By Lisa Friedman and Hiroko Tabuchi
The New York Times
The White House published a page on its website this month outlining the Trump administration’s key actions on climate and the environment. We annotated some of the claims.
By Rebecca Dzombak
Maggie Shannon for The New York Times
news analysis
Despite his administration’s lack of concern about climate change, a recession would give the atmosphere a break. At least in the short term.
By Lydia DePillis
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Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
The request echoes the position the Biden administration took in the case in January, surprising some observers.
By Pam Belluck
Medar de la Cruz
the new old age
A new training program teaches aides to stop baby talk and address older people as adults.
By Paula Span
Artwork by Kensuke Koike
Parents try everything to influence their children. But research suggests our brothers and sisters can have their own profound impact.
Peter Prato
Scientists identified antibodies that neutralized the poison in whole or in part from the bites of cobras, mambas and other deadly species.
By Apoorva Mandavilli
Getty Images
New data collected from more than 200,000 people across the world shows that young people aren’t as happy as they used to be.
By Christina Caron
