Science

Before there was light, there was cosmic inflation. Before life, planet Earth, the first galaxies — and even before the violent explosion of hot dense primordial stuff scientists traditionally have thought of as the Big Bang — our universe was in an exotic state, expanding exponentially at an unfathomable rate. It expanded so fast that […]

As federal job eliminations struck the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service on Thursday, scientists and environmental advocates denounced the cuts, saying they could cause real harm to Americans. The full extent of the layoffs across NOAA were not immediately clear, but Democratic legislators said hundreds of scientists and experts had

When the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus made its first appearance at a U.S. poultry farm in February 2022, roughly 29,000 turkeys at an Indiana facility were sacrificed in an attempt to avert a larger outbreak. It didn’t work. Three years later, highly pathogenic avian influenza has spread to all 50 states. The number of

The gunk has turned up on shorelines from Malibu to Redondo Beach: ghostly lines of charred black bits and melted debris left behind by retreating waves. It’s a mix of ash, sand and pulverized flecks of burned wood and plastic, material destroyed during January’s fires and then washed into the sea by recent rains. The

More than 900 Californians — including 15 children — have succumbed to the flu this season in what has turned out to be one of the worst surges of the respiratory illness in years, according to a report released Friday by the California Department of Public Health. Most of the influenza victims — 701 —

The chances that an asteroid, known as 2024 YR4, could hit Earth in seven years have fluctuated recently, but experts aren’t preparing for the worst yet. At the end of 2024, a NASA-funded telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first spotted 2024 YR4 and a month later scientists concluded there was a more than 1% chance

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is keeping its recent restrictions on gender-affirming care in place as hospital officials review decisions by federal judges to pause parts of President Trump’s executive order targeting the use of puberty blockers, hormones and other procedures for transgender youths. In separate rulings, U.S. District Court judges in Baltimore and Seattle issued

When Colleen Henderson’s 3-year-old daughter complained of pain while using the bathroom, doctors brushed it off as a urinary tract infection or constipation, common maladies in the potty-training years. Henderson, however, suspected it could be something worse, and asked for an ultrasound. The doctor and ultrasound technician told her that her insurance provider, UnitedHealthcare, would

We are living in an epidemic of chronic disease, with a growing number of pesticides, chemicals and food additives implicated in the declining health of Americans. Since 2019, another factor has been at play as well: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has driven a huge increase in chronic health consequences, broadly referred to as long COVID. Infection

State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) is frustrated by the lack of wastewater monitoring for H5N1 bird flu in the state’s most at risk communities: regions of the Central Valley where dairy workers, dairy herds and commercial poultry operations are most concentrated. On Tuesday, she introduced a bill to fix that. Called the Wastewater Surveillance Act,