Stories by Meghan Bartels

Will still more auroras ring out 2024, a year marked by the celestial displays?

Learn which molecules are responsible for giving Christmas trees their distinct, crisp-yet-spicy scent

See the year’s most striking images from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, NASA’s Mars rover and the best sky watching on offer

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, where’s your instruction manual? Here’s how to make the most of your Christmas tree

For two decades now, the iconic twin Voyager spacecraft have been quietly overturning everything we thought we knew about the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space

Mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey and New York State are underscoring the high number of these vehicles in the U.S.

It’s been a fascinating year in earth science—from mysterious “dark oxygen” to an “unidentified seismic object,” here are some incredible things we’ve learned about our planet in 2024

When Roe v. Wade fell, interest in long-acting and permanent birth control rose. Here’s what to know as Trump returns to office

Last year avian influenza brought death to the picturesque island of South Georgia off Antarctica. This season scientists hope things will be different

There are fewer than 500 Ethiopian wolves, and they may be the first large carnivore known to act as a pollinator

Milder cases of pneumonia, dubbed “walking pneumonia,” are on the rise in young children this year

When life feels difficult, humor can be a coping mechanism that relieves stress and offers the breathing room to keep going, scientists say

Understanding the psychology of ambiguous loss can help people struggling with grief and depression in the wake of the 2024 election results

The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election could set the climate agenda, reshape public education and shift the dynamics of global science collaboration.

Pesky leaks on the International Space Station aren’t the most serious issue facing U.S. human spaceflight

The Spanish brought peaches to the U.S., but Indigenous peoples spread the fruit across the eastern half of the U.S.

A tree’s fall palette offers a glimpse at its health and the weather it has experienced in a given year

As Hurricane Milton barreled across Florida, it triggered dozens of tornadoes. Here’s how that process occurs

Hurricane Milton hit Florida as a major storm, bringing devastating storm surge and rainfall to the state

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is on the rise after a lull at the beginning of the COVID pandemic

Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump offer starkly different responses to gun violence

Food science can explain why mozzarella melts like a dream while feta and ricotta don’t

Inland flooding from tropical cyclones, even at high altitudes, is a major worry—and one that scientists don’t know enough about

Looking silly when they run saves birds energy—and some dinosaurs may have done the same