It's been clear for decades that pieces of plastic garbage are swirling around on the surface of the ocean. But new experiments are showing that plastic may be getting down deeper than we thought. Erica Cirino is a science writer based in New York who sailed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch late last year with the Danish group Plastic Change . The 23-day trip was the last leg of a much longer journey that took the group to the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and around the Galapagos. “It was the

We’ve learned recently from scientists at Umass Amherst that New England will probably experience more warming than the rest of the planet in the near future. Along the northern East Coast, sea level has risen an average of four millimeters a year and is expected to increase. On Cape Cod, our salt marshes may be the difference between towns going underwater and staying dry. They provide a remarkably effective barrier against storms and erosion. Anne Giblin, interim director of the Ecosystems

The South Asian monsoon provides the drinking water for 1.5 billion people each year. It brings more than two-thirds of India's rainfall and accounts for more than half of the water that Indian farmers use to grow crops.

Over the past several years, climate change has gained a reputation as a liberal agenda item. It wasn't always that way; it was President George H. W. Bush who brought the U.S. into international climate negotiations in 1992. Today, many GOP legislators reject the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. But that science is clear – human activities are disrupting the global climate system, and that poses risks to people and institutions of all political persuasions. What’s more,

A new study this week finds that a regional carbon cap and trade system has saved hundreds of lives and billions of dollars for New Englanders. Officials from the nine participating states are currently working out the future of the program.

On certain issues – not all, but some – the science is clear: evolution gave rise to the diversity of life on Earth; climate change is happening, and humans are largely responsible; and vaccines do not cause autism. And yet, significant portions of the American public reject these scientific realities. “No one looks at scientific findings, scientific results from a completely objective point of view,” said Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown University and author of Finding Darwin’s

Gravitational waves, the Zika virus, and finding water in unexpected places in the solar system were some of the biggest science stories of 2016. In the U.S., it was also a year that highlighted the strained relationship between science and politics. Climate change and other science policy questions were almost absent from the presidential campaign. The election of Donald Trump came as a surprise to most political pundits and sent scientists scrambling to find out more about the incoming Trump

As the new year begins, you may be planning to make some changes. And, as a nation, we seem to be in a state of flux – socially and politically. Following through on resolutions and staying sane in a rapidly changing world takes more than will-power and positive thinking. Here are three tips based on the latest science of psychology and neurobiology: Tell yourself the right stories. Whether or not we realize it, we are constantly interpreting what’s going on around us and telling ourselves

One challenge astronauts face as they prepare for a mission to Mars is that they haven’t got a thing to wear. For example, astronaut Andrzej Stewart had to wear a hazmat suit during his training at the Mars simulation center on Hawaii known as HI-SEAS. That suit just wasn’t realistic. The problem is, it’s too expensive to build actual Mars space suits just to train on Earth. A fully functional Mars suit would cost millions of dollars to build. Plus, it would be extremely heavy. (Mars has 62

Usually, efforts to find a new treatment or cure for a disease go something like this: scientists spend years figuring out something about the basic biology of the disease, and then spend more years finding ways to target a part of that process. When they hit on something that works in the laboratory, they (or, often, a pharmaceutical company) spend even more years - and a lot more money - doing the tests necessary to prove a drug is safe and effective for use in human patients. When your two