Science & Earth

Christina Koch told colleagues on the International Space Station that viewing Earth from the Artemis 2 lunar flyby emphasized its beauty and the blackness around it; Artemis 2 is scheduled to splash down April 10 after the mission's moon flyby.

India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at the Kalpakkam Nuclear Complex reached first criticality on April 6, 2026, and is reported to mark entry into the second stage of the country's three-stage nuclear program.

Naturalist Bill Volkert told a public audience about long-distance bird migration and said that storms, wildfires and hurricanes can reduce local bird numbers.

Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health and 2026 Stockholm Water Prize laureate, says a UN-linked report he authored shows 'water bankruptcy'—where use exceeds natural renewal and systems lose the ability to recover—is occurring across all inhabited continents, and that global freshwater is being depleted at scale.

U.S. News lists 39 Johns Hopkins graduate programs among the top 10 nationally, including eight No. 1 rankings and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at No. 1 overall.

A pooled analysis of more than 500 fMRI scans from studies of five psychedelics reports increased communication between sensory-processing and higher-order brain regions, and the results were published in Nature Medicine.

About 7,000 Indigenous people from roughly 200 groups are gathered in Brasilia for the 22nd Free Land encampment, and government representatives said they will take part in hearings at the event during the week.

While orbiting the moon the Artemis II crew proposed names for two lunar craters and shared an emotional group hug on a livestream, including a proposal to name one crater 'Carroll' in honor of commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife.

A robotic float operating in the North Pacific returned a three-year chemical dataset that revealed dynamic nitrogen cycling in oxygen minimum zones, researchers report in Communications Earth & Environment.

Kerbal Space Program reached a peak of 11,890 concurrent players on April 5, the highest since its 1.0 release in 2015, and the article reports that player counts began rising around the Artemis II launch on April 1.

Artemis II's Orion crew is flying farther from Earth than any humans have gone to observe the Moon's far side, with 10 science objectives and 35 targets to photograph; they may also look for a 2022 double crater linked to a Chang'e 5‑T1 rocket impact.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge report a lab method that uses spent acid from car batteries and a resilient photocatalyst to break down plastic waste into intermediates and then, under sunlight, produce hydrogen and acetic acid; the catalyst remained active for about 264 hours in tests.

A TikTok clip shows a quality engineer who worked on the RS-25 engine becoming visibly emotional while watching the Artemis II launch on April 1; the mission is NASA's first crewed Artemis flight and will loop the Orion spacecraft around the Moon over about 10 days.

Researchers at the University of Oulu used an ultrafast MRI sequence (MREG) alongside DC-EEG and near-infrared tracking to observe faster vasomotor and bidirectional cerebrospinal fluid pulses during sleep, and they reported increased movement of sodium and potassium ions in that fluid.

Venus will be prominent in the west-northwest soon after sunset through April, and the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to peak the night of April 21 into early April 22. A faint comet, C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), is due to appear in the evening sky late in the month.

Artemis 2 completed a crewed lunar flyby in early April 2026 with four astronauts aboard; scientists say the mission is a test of systems and is gathering human and environmental data to inform future Artemis landings and lunar research.

Astronomers report that the red giant SDSS J0715-7334 is the most chemically pristine star known, with an extremely low metallicity, and its composition provides evidence that dust-driven cooling helped form low-mass stars.

New Hampshire is home to an estimated 5,600 black bears distributed across much of the state, with higher densities in northern and central forests; state monitoring, regulated hunting, and public outreach help keep the population stable and reduce conflicts.

Shuggie's Trash Pie in San Francisco builds dishes from upcycled ingredients such as oat‑milk pulp flour and offcuts like beef hearts to keep food out of the dumpster, and experts on NPR say cutting food waste is an important climate solution because food systems produce about one third of global warming pollution.

Reid Wiseman will command Artemis 2, a 10-day lunar flyby scheduled no earlier than April 1, and he says the moon is "all I think about" as he prepares with his three crewmates.

Artemis II recently traveled to the moon, and Jim Head, a Brown University planetary geoscientist who worked on the Apollo missions, told WBZ-TV he finds the crew's excitement "inspirational" and hopes it will inspire a new generation of scientists.

Astronaut Kellie Gerardi and husband Steven Baumruk have welcomed their second daughter, whom they introduced as Maxine Quinn (nicknamed "Max Q"); Gerardi shared an Instagram reel of the first moments on April 5 and revealed the name on April 6 after a years-long IVF journey she has documented publicly.

The Salton Sea region holds large lithium reserves and companies are developing extraction projects while residents and environmental groups raise concerns about water use, air quality, and health. A 2024 lawsuit challenging Imperial County approvals was dismissed and that decision is currently under appeal.

During Artemis II's close lunar flyby the crew will witness an Earthset, a drawn-out solar eclipse, and an Earthrise while losing radio contact with Earth for roughly 40 minutes.

Artemis II is expected to surpass Apollo 13's distance record by about 4,100 miles during a six-hour flyby that will let the crew observe the moon's far side and features such as the Orientale Basin.

A three-orca pod not previously recorded in Salish Sea catalogs was seen near Vancouver and Seattle in March; researchers matched photos to Alaska sightings and assigned them identifiers T419, T420 and T421.

Four participants — an astronaut, an astrobiologist and two Opinion editors — discuss Artemis II, lunar geology and the scientific, economic and geopolitical questions around returning humans to the moon.

Dubai Municipality will invest Dh348m (about $94.7m) to build 35 parks across 23 residential communities in 2026 as part of the Dubai Parks and Greenery Strategy and the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan.

A special issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology reviews current studies on AI across gastroenterology, reporting mixed results for polyp detection, faster AI‑assisted capsule endoscopy review, LLM‑based decision tools, and discussions of ethical and legal concerns.

Heavy rain and storms across Afghanistan have caused floods and landslides that the Disaster Management Authority says killed 77 people and injured 137 over the past 10 days; homes and major roads have been damaged and more rain is forecast.