"The world has gained a new weapon in the war on malaria, among the oldest known and deadliest of infectious diseases: the first vaccine shown to help prevent the disease. By one estimate, it will save tens of thousands of children each year."
The launch of NASA’s new Landsat Earth-observing satellite is a reminder to reporters that millions of images from over five decades can help unearth many environmental trends, whether deforestation, coastal erosion, suburban sprawl or wildfire impacts. The new Reporter’s Toolbox explains how the service works and how to access the resource, along with examples of prize-winning stories.
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
"Scientists with Saildrone and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration managed to drive a robotic surfboard into the core of Category 4 Hurricane Sam on Thursday, in a first-of-its-kind scientific mission as they try to better understand hurricanes."
"The green metal roof on Mary Bradshaw's house gleams amid scorched earth and dead, blackened trees. All of the surrounding homes burned in last year's Beachie Creek Fire in Oregon's Santiam Canyon, but hers was untouched."
"Using recovered DNA to "genetically resurrect" an extinct species — the central idea behind the Jurassic Park films — may be moving closer to reality with the creation this week of a new company that aims to bring back woolly mammoths thousands of years after the last of the giants disappeared from the Arctic tundra."
"Proponents of renewable energy see a better way to keep power through storms expected to get stronger: make energy generation much more community-based."
"Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it expected to spend more than $13.5 billion by 2030 to develop batteries and its battery supply system, in a bid to take a lead in the key automotive technology over the next decade."
"Cryptocurrencies have emerged as one of the most captivating, yet head-scratching, investments in the world. They soar in value. They crash. ... And in the process of simply existing, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, one of the most popular, use astonishing amounts of electricity."
Carbon capture and storage technology has been around for years, but is being repositioned as a way to continue using fossil fuels in the face of climate change. Backgrounder takes a close look at how it works, its history and its politics. But even as the technology is taken up by Congress, the question is: Does the math add up?
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