Adam Minter

An unusually large influx of tiny insects called aphids have been sucking on Dallas-area pecan trees in recent weeks. After they’ve had their fill, they “excrete” the waste out their back ends and onto cars, driveways and sidewalks. “Texas is covered in a sticky, icky goo,” declared a Dallas…

College students and nutrition don’t always go together. Spend time on campus and sooner or later somebody will brag about a finals week fueled on cheap drinks, or weekends spent subsisting on leftover pizza. Similar diets in young schoolchildren would be cause for alarm; When they occur in college…

The world's most trafficked endangered species by monetary value isn't an elephant or a rhino. It's rosewood, a group of slow-growing tropical hardwoods prized for their use in traditional Chinese arts and crafts and furniture. Beds made from rosewood have sold for over $1 million; the overall…

In rural America, the shoulder-high corn is increasingly competing with a new cash crop: solar power. Acres of solar panels shine brightly in fields along interstates and rural byways, signaling a change in how America’s farming country generates income. The need for a happy marriage between these…

Who owns the moon? The question sounds preposterous, but a few weeks ago NASA stumbled into it by releasing a list of potential lunar landing and exploration sites for its upcoming Artemis missions. It turns out that some of those sites are also being considered by the Chinese space program for its…

For the second time in a week, NASA scrubbed the launch of the Space Launch System designed to return Americans to the moon. First conceived in 2010, and initially scheduled to have its first test flight in 2017, the rocket is now scheduled to take off no earlier than late September, and possibly…

US-based airlines canceled more than 100,000 flights between January and July, surpassing the number of cancellations that took place during the same period in pre-Covid 2019. The impact on passengers is significant. Not only must they find alternative transportation; they must also obtain a refund…

Space scientists have waited nearly four decades for a taxpayer-funded spacecraft to be put to death when it sinks into the atmosphere of Venus. On Tuesday, Rocket Lab USA Inc., a private space launch provider, announced that the wait was almost over. But instead of relying on the government space…

Are crowded airports and hotels ruining your summer vacation plans? A cruise to the North Pole on the world’s first and only luxury icebreaker might be just the antidote. The custom-built tourist ship Le Commandant Charcot plowed through sea ice on July 13 to make its first successful…

Elon Musk probably took it for granted that his space exploration company would launch and land the first private space mission to Mars. However, if he thought that SpaceX had cornered the market, he no longer does. This week, two space startups announced a bold plan to send a lander to Mars by…