Houston built a 26-lane freeway to beat traffic, but the cars came back and exposed the trap behind wider roads
Houston spent nearly $3 billion widening a freeway to 26 lanes, but induced demand brought traffic back within years.
A whale as long as a city bus can race through the ocean, but NOAA’s 212 strandings reveal a hidden coastal danger
Mobility
Houston built a 26-lane freeway to beat traffic, but the cars came back and exposed the trap behind wider roads
Houston spent nearly $3 billion widening a freeway to 26 lanes, but induced demand brought traffic back within years.
Union Pacific’s Big Boy crossed America at 1.2 million pounds, and the diesels behind it were not secretly doing the work
Union Pacific’s 1.2-million-pound Big Boy crossed America in 2026, with trailing diesels only assisting, never driving it.
Stanford researchers paired seismometers with infrasound microphones to capture hurricane forces near the surface, offering a new data stream for forecasting storm intensity without waiting for landfall
When Hurricane Isaac barreled over Louisiana in 2012, it pressed down on the Earth so hard that sensors built for earthquakes felt the
London police have seized more than 2,500 illegal e-bikes in seven months, already beating all of last year, and the roadside machine they now use explains why so many failed
London police seized 2,500 e-bikes in seven months. New roadside detection tech explains the rise in enforcement actions.
A study of nearly 10,000 battery tests found used EV batteries hold up far better than feared, with the Kia e-Niro still at 97% capacity after 62,000 miles
A study of nearly 10,000 battery health tests found top EVs keep over 97% of capacity after 62,000 miles, easing degradation fears.
Morocco is testing a porous ‘sponge’ pavement to replace scorching black asphalt in Marrakech and Agadir, and pilot data show it can run up to 16°F cooler
Morocco is testing permeable pavement that drains water and cools itself through evaporation, part of a wider climate resilience push.
Energy
A Massachusetts cranberry bog grew under solar panels, and the result shows why shade can help crops without proving sweeter fruit
Solar panels shading a Massachusetts cranberry bog eased heat stress in tests, but there’s still no proof the berries turn sweeter.
Economy
Technology
Science
Archaeologists uncovered eight 8,000-year-old storage pits in Spain, but the deeper layers held an even rarer surprise, remarkably preserved traces of the last hunter-gatherers who lived there just before farming transformed the region
Storage pits and hearths at a Spanish rock shelter capture the shift from hunting to farming, with layers dated across 1,500 years.
A river in the Peruvian Amazon runs hot enough to reach 86°C with no volcano nearby, and researchers found that every 1°C increase along its banks was linked to an 11% drop in local tree diversity
Peru’s boiling river heats the forest around it, and each degree of warming there matches an 11 percent drop in tree diversity
Between 69 and 72 million years ago, a vast sea covered what is now South Dakota, and fossils found there still have iridescent shells that shimmer like pearls after all that time buried underground
South Dakota’s iridescent ammonites come from a sea that once split North America, and marine fossils turn up in every U.S. state
NASA’s radar searched for Mars’ buried lake beneath the south pole, and the weak echo has made the water mystery harder to believe
NASA’s sharper radar found only a weak echo where a Martian lake was suspected, weakening the case for liquid water under the ice
A 2,000-year-old gold ring found beside human remains in Thailand carries an inscription that may reveal an ancient trade route
A 2,000-year-old gold ring found beside human remains in Thailand carries an inscription pointing to ancient ties with South Asia.
NASA still has no year for the first human Mars landing, and the missing date reveals why the real countdown has not begun
NASA still has no date for the first human landing on Mars, revealing how many critical pieces of the mission remain unresolved.
Environment
Three harbor seals followed turbine rows in the North Sea, turning offshore wind foundations into hunting stops scientists did not expect
Three GPS-tagged harbor seals in the North Sea moved between offshore wind turbine foundations, using them as reef-like feeding stops.
A whale as long as a city bus can race through the ocean, but NOAA’s 212 strandings reveal a hidden coastal danger
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