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An artist created a silver-colored statue of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis using gallium, a soft metal with a low melting point. Placed outdoors, the statue's face melted away within about 30 minutes, exposing a skeleton underneath.
A discussion piece examines various climate-change impacts already affecting the United States, asking which of these risks receives the least public attention relative to its severity. It does not name a single definitive answer but surveys multiple ongoing effects, such as extreme heat, flooding, and drought, that are reshaping communities nationwide.
A new paper in Climate and Atmospheric Science by two University of Kansas researchers finds the rate of global warming roughly doubled between 2011-2025 compared with 1971-2025. Extrapolating that accelerated trend, the authors project the planet could cross the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by 2028, nearly a decade earlier than prior estimates.
Noodles & Company ran a limited-time ramen promotion that brought in more than 156,000 new guests. The struggling fast-casual chain now plans to add ramen to its permanent menu as a result.
New research shows that roughly half of the world's population has experienced overlapping extreme heat and wildfire smoke exposure. Researchers link the increasing frequency of these combined events to climate change, noting that each hazard carries significant health risks on its own and becomes more dangerous when they coincide.
A reassessment of 892 reef-building coral species against IUCN Red List criteria found that of the 774 with sufficient data, 340 species (44%) now qualify as threatened, including 33 Critically Endangered, 251 Endangered and 56 Vulnerable. The analysis, an update of a 2008 assessment, used proxies such as global coral cover trends and projected severe bleaching frequency under a moderate-emissions climate scenario, since population data for most coral species are lacking.
A new BioScience paper led by Oregon State University's Bill Ripple finds seven of 16 planetary vital signs monitored by researchers are at their most extreme levels ever recorded, including atmospheric CO2, which is 50% above preindustrial levels, and record-low Greenland and Antarctic ice combined with record-high ocean heat. The study also reports warming has accelerated from roughly 0.05°C per decade between 1880-1970 to 0.36°C per decade since 2010.
Alejandro González Iñárritu's new film 'Digger,' starring Tom Cruise as a caricatured oil billionaire, is reportedly on pace to become one of the biggest box-office failures in history despite its high budget. The film uses a play-within-a-movie structure, revealing that its broad satire of an oilman and a Trump-like administration's climate response is actually a theatrical reenactment of past events.
A Nature commentary responds to a proposal by Joseph Stiglitz and colleagues for an International Panel on Inequality modeled on the IPCC, noting that the IPCC has inspired calls for similar bodies on antimicrobial resistance, migration, pandemics, food systems and AI governance. The piece argues that not every global problem is suited to an IPCC-style authoritative assessment structure.
A new survey finds that about 20% of workers say their job responsibilities have changed substantially since they were hired, often without explanation from employers. The trend is being linked partly to workplace shifts driven by artificial intelligence, which is reshaping roles faster than companies communicate those changes to staff.
Daily sea surface temperatures in the Tropical Pacific are running about six degrees Fahrenheit above normal, the highest level on record for this metric. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has raised its estimate that this year's El Niño will surpass the intensity of any event since 1950, from 75 percent to 83 percent, and some scientists believe it could grow stronger still. UNICEF has separately warned that hundreds of millions of children could be affected by the pattern's knock-on effects.
NOAA is forecasting a 100% chance of an extremely strong El Niño persisting through December, with over 80% odds it continues through February. The event has already set multiple daily heat records in the tropical Pacific, including a peak of 3.4 degrees Celsius above normal, and NOAA's three-month forecast projects heat could reach 2.7 degrees Celsius, potentially surpassing the previous record of 2.4 degrees Celsius set in 1982-1983.