Flash floods like the one that swept down the Guadalupe River[1] in Texas on July 4, 2025, can be highly unpredictable. While there are sophisticated flood prediction models and different types of warning systems in some places, effective flood protection requires extensive preparedness and awareness.
It also requires an understanding of how...
The burgeoning space industry and the technologies society increasingly relies on – electric grids, aviation and telecommunications – are all vulnerable to the same threat: space weather.
Space weather[1] encompasses any variations in the space environment between the Sun and Earth. One common type of space weather event is called an ...
Our two-person team loaded the car with a GPS, a drone, notebooks, sample bags, a trowel and a flat spatula lovingly called a scoopula. Then we drove 30 minutes in our rented truck from Yuma, Arizona, to the Algodones Dunes[1], a sandy field bordering California, Arizona and Mexico. The day was sunny, with a strong breeze. Turning off the...
Despite representing only 4% of the world’s population[1], the United States accounts for over half of science Nobel Prizes[2] awarded since 2000, hosts seven of The Times Higher Education Top 10 science universities[3], and incubates firms such as Alphabet (Google)[4], Meta[5] and Pfizer[6] that turn federally funded discoveries into...