Have We Already Ruined Our Next COVID Summer?
A lot has changed since last year’s pre-Delta lull, but America can still reclaim some coronavirus-free chill—if it decides to commit.
Science
Why Can’t We Just Call BA.2 Omicron?
Whatever happened to the simpler Greek-letter naming system?
We’ve Never Seen a Carbon-Removal Plan Like This Before
Companies including Google and Facebook are pouring more than $900 million into a nascent technology that’s essential to zeroing out emissions.
America Created Its Own Booster Problems
Months of confusing messaging, piled onto existing inequities, kneecapped America’s booster campaign before it had really started.
What Humans Can Learn From Nature’s Biggest Hibernators
Could bears hold the key to better treatments for stroke, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s?
What Can One Disease Do to a Landscape?
After the vicuñas in Argentina’s San Guillermo National Park caught mange from domesticated llamas, the world around them changed.
Have Americans Been Mercilessly Squashing a Creepy Bug for Nothing?
Kill-on-sight orders inspired people to go after spotted lanternflies with a (perhaps misguided) vengeance.
The 1.5-Degree Goal Is All But Dead
It was once the pinnacle of humanity’s climate ambitions. A new UN-led climate report essentially concedes that it’s out of reach.
Naked Mole Rats Have a Very Strange Status Symbol
The elite rule with an iron fist—and a giant spleen.
America Is Staring Down Its First So What? Wave
The United States could be in for a double whammy: a surge it cares to neither measure nor respond to.