The authoritative guide to ensuring science and technology make life on Earth better, not worse.

Investigative Reporting

The University of Chicago’s new climate initiative: brave research program or potentially dangerous foray into solar geoengineering?

By Jessica McKenzie | Analysis, Climate Change, Investigative Reporting

The short march to China’s hydrogen bomb

By Hui Zhang | Investigative Reporting, Nuclear Weapons

The underwater Amazon: Kelp forests are crucial to the fight against climate change. Here’s how they could be saved.

By Paul Tullis | Climate Change, Investigative Reporting

Black swans from Mars? The real risks of sending alien samples home

By Valerie Brown | Biosecurity, Disruptive Technologies, Investigative Reporting, Special Topics

Playing downwind of the Trinity test site on the day of the explosion, July 16, 1945

Collateral damage: American civilian survivors of the 1945 Trinity test

By Lesley M. M. Blume | Investigative Reporting, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Weapons

Nerds, ninjas, and neutrons: The story of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team

By Jay A. Tilden, Dallas Boyd | Investigative Reporting, Multimedia, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons

Showdown in Dixie Valley: Battle over geothermal project pits tiny toad against renewable energy

By Jessica McKenzie | Climate Change, Investigative Reporting

Nowhere to hide: How a nuclear war would kill you—and almost everyone else.

By François Diaz-Maurin, Thomas Gaulkin | Investigative Reporting, Multimedia, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons

Is the next pandemic brewing on the Netherlands’ poultry farms?

By Paul Tullis | Biosecurity, Investigative Reporting, Multimedia

Gathering storm: The industrial infrastructure catastrophe looming over America’s Gulf coast

By Tristan Baurick | Climate Change, Investigative Reporting, Multimedia

The untold story of the world’s biggest nuclear bomb

By Alex Wellerstein | Investigative Reporting, Multimedia, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons

Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on February 3. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

By Nicholas Wade | Biosecurity, Investigative Reporting