A grizzly bear and her cub traverse a steep hillside in June 2024. in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. In the early 1900s, long before smartphones and selfie sticks, tourists flocked to Yellowstone National Park — not for the geysers or scenery, but for a grotesque show: A nightly spectacle of grizzly bears raiding cafeteria scraps…
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Summer has officially begun with a blast of scorching temperatures across much of the United States. The National Weather Service is warning of “extremely dangerous heat” baking 160 million people under a heat dome stretching from the Midwest to the East Coast the rest of this week. It’s already proven fatal. But while this is…
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A puma, or mountain lion, seen by a motion-sensing camera near the border wall. | Courtesy of Ganesh Marín The border wall between the US and Mexico is, of course, a barrier meant to prevent human migrants from crossing into America as they seek work, family, or refuge from violence. It’s also a significant…
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A You’re Hot, Stay Cool sign with an AC unit and fan posted to a street light during a heat wave on 86th Street in Manhattan, New York. | Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Lee Kuan Yew, the iron-willed founder of modern Singapore, was once asked what the most important invention of the…
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An aerial view shows floodwaters covering farm fields and a rural road near Poplar Bluff, Missouri. In April, thunderstorms, heavy rains, high winds, and tornadoes plagued the regions for several days causing widespread damage. | Scott Olson/Getty Images Globally, humanity is producing more food than ever, but that harvest is concentrated in just a handful…
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A capsule full of lab-raised mosquitoes falls from a drone in Maui. | Adam Knox/American Bird Conservancy It sounds like something out of a nightmare: a giant drone flying through the sky and dropping containers full of live, buzzing mosquitoes, one of the world’s most hated insects. But in Hawaii, this scenario is very much…
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A drilling rig plugs an abandoned oil well in Montana. Abandoned wells are a major source of methane emissions. | Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Odorless and colorless, methane is a gas that is easy to miss — but it’s one of the most important contributors to global warming. It can trap up…
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A home in front of the John E. Amos coal-fired power plant in Poca, West Virginia, in February 2022. | Dane Rhys/Bloomberg via Getty Images This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: The…
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A hummingbird in Long Island, New York. | Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Support independent journalism that matters — become a Vox Member today. For a limited time, you can get more than 30% your membership. Hummingbirds run on sugar. Sweet nectar powers their tiny, furious bodies and super-fast wings, which beat as many as 80 to 90…
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The Silver Peak lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada. The world is hungry for more stuff: televisions, phones, motors, container ships, solar panels, satellites. That means the stuff required to make stuff is in high demand, and none more so than what are known as “critical minerals.” These are a handful of elements and minerals…
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