We have used machine learning to identify the biggest plastic pollution hotspots across more than 50,000 towns, cities and rural areas worldwide. Our new global model reveals the most detailed picture of plastic pollution ever created with the highest environmental concentrations in India, predominantly because so much of its waste isn't collected.

The official U.S. food insecurity rate rose to 13.5% in 2023 from 12.8% in 2022, according to data the U.S. Department of Agriculture released on Sept. 4, 2024. That means more than one in eight Americans—about 47 million people—couldn't get enough food for themselves or their families at least some of the time.

The capsule, which returned without astronauts, and other space programs at Boeing have suffered many delays and cost overruns.

Ph.D. candidate Elysia Petras and archaeologist Dr. Brandi MacDonald recently discovered 15 shards of Afro-Caribbean pottery ware at Jackson Wall Manor on the Cayman Islands. Through their analysis, they discovered that the pottery was not locally produced but originated in Jamaica, suggesting that local slaves likely participated in inter-island trade between the Caymans and Jamaica.

If you're not susceptible to urban myths and misinformation, there's a new study from the World Health Organization that will ease your 2010s-era anxieties about cell phones. There were a lot of other developments this week, including the return of Boeing's trouble-plagued Starliner capsule to Earth with a surprising number of astronauts (

After 24 years diligently studying Earth's magnetic field, a satellite will mostly burn up over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday during a "targeted" re-entry into the atmosphere, in a first for the European Space Agency as it seeks to reduce space debris.

As an innovative concept in materials science and engineering, the inspiration for self-healing materials comes from living organisms that have the innate ability to self-heal. Along this line, the search for self-healing materials has been generally focused on "soft" materials like polymers and hydrogels. For solid-state metals, one may intuitively imagine that any form of self-healing will be much more difficult to achieve.

Super Typhoon Yagi uprooted thousands of trees and swept ships and boats out to sea, killing one person, as it made landfall in northern Vietnam Saturday, after blowing past southern China where it left two dead.

The two NASA astronauts left behind at the International Space Station following the return of Boeing's troubled capsule are Navy test pilots who have ridden out long missions before.

Boeing's first astronaut mission ended Friday night with an empty capsule landing and two test pilots still in space, left behind until next year because NASA judged their return too risky.

A mural honoring ancient and modern figures in medicine that has hung in the lobby of Pfizer's original New York City headquarters for more than 60 years could soon end up in pieces if conservationists can't find a new home for it in the next few weeks.

Orange, blue, calico, two-toned and ... cotton-candy colored?

BepiColombo, a joint European-Japanese mission, completed its latest flyby of Mercury, sending back a sneak peek of the cratered planet it will begin to orbit in 2026.

A small team in a remote corner of Colombia is surveying every tree in an effort to better understand how much planet-warming carbon the Amazon actually stores.

William Cope Moyers told the world he had it all figured out after beating his addiction to crack cocaine. But then a dentist gave him an opioid pain killer.

More than 150 people were sickened from products sold at smoke and vape shops, providing evidence of the lax regulation of new food items.

Pope Francis is visiting Papua New Guinea, which has been exploited for its natural resources and is imperiled by rising sea levels.

Previous human infections occurred in workers on farms. But community transmission of the virus remains unlikely for now, experts said.

Researchers used lasers to find the Roman military camp, which was "strategically" located overlooking a battleground.

Two NASA astronauts will stay aboard the International Space Station as the troubled vehicle they rode undocks ahead of a landing in the New Mexico desert.

The D.E.A. is increasing its quota for the popular stimulant as patients still struggle to fill prescriptions.

Researchers have achieved data rates as high as 424Gbit/s across a 53-km turbulent free-space optical link using plasmonic modulators—devices that use special light waves called surface plasmon polaritons to control and change optical signals. The new research lays the groundwork for high-speed optical communication links that transmit data over open air or space.

The origins of aptly named supermassive black holes—which can weigh in at more than a million times the mass of the sun and reside in the center of most galaxies—remain one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.

An African penguin who left many offspring in his long life, he belonged to the largest colony of the aquatic bird species in North America, according to the zoo.

After two devastating storms hit Stonington in January, plans are multiplying to raise and fortify wharves, roads and buildings. But will that be enough?