What Is the Greatest Number of All Time?
Tom Garrity (left) and Colin Adams.Photo courtesy of these guys. Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Williams College mathematicians Tom Garrity and Colin Adams are best known outside of their field (and perhaps inside it, too) for their occasional public smackdowns on questions such as, “Which is the better number: π…
The Trump Administration Is Taking Aim at This Amazing Bird So Oil Companies Can Drill Public Land
A sage-grouse male struts to attract a mateBob Wick/ZUMA Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. One weird western bird is again at the center of a battle between conservationists and the federal government. Now, like a lot of environmental causes under the Trump administration, the greater sage-grouse—once a candidate for the…
Climate Change Pushes Ticks Into Canada, Bringing Lyme Disease (and Confusion) With Them
Patrick Pleul/DPA/ZUMA Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by Undark and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Joanne Seiff, a resident of Manitoba, contracted Lyme disease a couple of years ago but didn’t remember pulling off the tick that bit her; nor did she have the telltale…
Thanks to Trump, This Senator Finally Gets Her Chance to Decimate Alaska’s Environmental Protections
Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom/ZUMA Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski had been a member of the United States Senate for 15 years. She’d pulled…
Is Russia Using the GMO Debate to Troll Americans?
Andy Katz/Zuma Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Genetically modified foods remain controversial for many reasons, but at this point, the majority of scientists view them as safe to eat. The rest of Americans aren’t so sure: According to a major poll conducted in 2015, 57 percent of the general public thought…
The Trump Administration’s New Environmental Justice Adviser Has a Plutonium Problem
iStock/Getty Images Plus Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by The New Republic and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. One year ago, the man who founded the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice resigned. In a lengthy letter, Mustafa Ali asked newly sworn-in EPA Administrator…