On March 13, the Biden administration approved the controversial Willow Project in Alaska. ConocoPhillips’ massive Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope moved through the administration’s approval process for months, galvanizing a sudden uprising of online activism against it, including more than one million letters written to the White House in protest of the project and a Change.org petition more than 3 million signatures. Here’s what to know about the Willow Project. What is the Willow Project? ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project is a massive and decadeslong oil drilling venture on Alaska’s North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is…

Seismic stations in Ukraine and Romania detected what appears to be an explosion at the Kakhovka Dam on the morning that it failed, Norwegian seismologists tell NPR. The analysis was done by NORSAR, a Norwegian group that monitors seismic networks throughout Europe. According to their data, the explosion took place on June 6 at 2:54 AM local time in Ukraine. The detection is the first piece of independent evidence that the dam, which held back a reservoir roughly the size of Utah's Great Salt Lake, was blown up, rather than collapsing from strain and mismanagement. At a press conference earlier…

Europe had the hottest summer on record and the second warmest year ever in 2022, according to the latest European State of the Climate report Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022 and its second warmest year ever, according to the European State of the Climate report. The annual report, released today, also reveals that temperatures across Europe are rising at twice the global average, with the continent having experienced 2.2°C of warming since pre-industrial times. The figures, which come from multiple data sets including satellite, in situ measurements and numerical weather prediction models, fit into the wider…

A train derailed and caught fire in eastern Ohio, releasing hazardous chemicals into the air, soil and water – and raising concerns about health effects for residents Just before 9pm on 3 February, a train carrying hazardous chemicals partially derailed and caught fire in eastern Ohio, sending thick black smoke into the air. More than 1000 people in the town of East Palestine and surrounding areas were evacuated under orders from the state governor. On 8 February, state and local officials announced that air quality monitoring had not detected contaminants of concern above levels considered safe for humans, and it…

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in early February killed tens of thousands of people, flattened wide areas of cities and sent the region, which was… On the morning of 6 February 2023, at 4:17 a.m., the first earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 and the second earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 9 hours later affected Adıyaman, Hatay,Kahramanmaraş, Kilis, Osmaniye, Gaziantep, Malatya, Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Elazığ and Adana, where almost 14 million people reside including about 1.8 million Syrian refugees. Aftershocks continue in the disaster area1 . The last official announcement about the deaths in the…

Ukraine and Russia are two countries that border each other in Eastern Europe. On February 24, 2022, Russia sent its army into Ukraine and began trying to take over the country by force.

The condition of the parchment Declaration of Independence is a sign of the place it has held in the hearts of many Americans. Years of public display have faded and worn this treasured document. Today it is maintained under the most exacting archival conditions possible.

A huge spiral carved into the ground in India covers almost 100,000 square metres, dwarfing other individual geoglyphs like those in the Nazca desert in Peru. The spiral is in a small cluster of geoglyphs discovered by father-and-son researchers Carlo and Yohann Oetheimer, who are based in Luriecq, France. Carlo searched Google Earth images of the Thar desert in India and identified eight sites with possible geoglyphs. In 2016, they flew a drone over them and found that four were furrows dug for failed tree plantations. One site was near the village of Boha. Using the drone there, the Oetheimers…

A survey shows a region of Saudi Arabia is home to 1000 monuments that may all date back 7000 years, and that seem to have been used for ritual activities

A life size kangaroo painted in red ochre around 17,300 years ago is Australia’s oldest known rock art. This indicates that the earliest style of rock art in Australia focused on animals, similar to the early cave art found in Indonesia and Europe. Thousands of rock art sites are found all over Australia, with the Kimberley region of Western Australia containing a particularly rich record. But dating the images is challenging as the minerals and organic material needed to determine when the art was created are hard to find. Stylistically, Australian rock art has been categorised into five different phases,…