Stories by Meghan Bartels

U.S. lawmakers are moving to delay the International Space Station’s retirement, giving more time for commercial replacements to be built

Scientists have discovered a potential path out of devastating genetic bottlenecks that could help these Australian animals, as well as many other vulnerable and endangered species

Public health chaos and research funding cuts are inspiring nationwide pro-science protests against the Trump administration

Two NASA spacecraft—the MAVEN orbiter and the Perseverance rover—have now seen very different signals suggesting lightning on Mars

Asteroids, exploding stars, and feasting black holes swarm in the first-ever batch of nightly alerts from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile

These caterpillars rely on ants to tend them, and they use a surprisingly complex sense of rhythm to make it happen

Researchers have rediscovered a 77-year-old recording of a haunting song that now has been determined to have come from a humpback whale

Vomit is gross—but 290-million-year-old vomit is a scientific marvel

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse—so saddle up for some equine science

Maize farmers in Peru’s Chincha Valley were fertilizing their crops with seabird poop as early as the year 1250

The South Carolina measles outbreak has triggered rare but serious brain swelling in some children

There’s no safe level of exposure to lead—but a small, strange study shows we’ve made incredible progress in recent decades

Icy weather brings a serious risk of falls. Here’s how to stay safe

Many of the team behind NASA’s Artemis II mission were children 40 years ago, when the space shuttle Challenger disaster reshaped spaceflight

Ice has many forms beyond the mundane stuff produced in a standard freezer

A European spacecraft caught rare footage of three successive prominences popping off the sun

Florida’s iguanas are an introduced species, and they aren’t used to the chilly temperatures the state is currently experiencing

Wikipedia had to fight to establish its legitimacy—and now it faces a new existential threat posed by generative AI

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has slashed childhood vaccine recommendations in the middle of respiratory virus season

NASA on Thursday announced it would take the extraordinary step of bringing four crewmembers back to Earth from the space station before their official mission end

NASA may bring some of the ISS’s crew home earlier than planned after one member experienced a medical issue just hours before two astronauts were due to complete a space walk outside the station on Wednesday

Trump has cited Venezuela’s oil resources as motivation for capturing the nation’s leader—here’s the geology behind the news

A galaxy cluster discovered on New Year’s Eve in 2020 shines in a new image from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory

The brutal respiratory infection has infected tens of thousands and killed at least 13 people in the U.S. in 2025