Haven or trap? Study finds sinkholes protect endangered tree at evolutionary cost China’s huge sinkholes, known as tiankengs (“heavenly pits” in Chinese), are both helping and harming one of the region’s most endangered plants at the same time. They protect the rare Magnolia aromatica tree from climate change, but they also keep its populations isolated,…

Millions of years before roads connected modern cities, dinosaurs were already following well-worn routes across ancient landscapes. A remarkable fossil site in central Bolivia has preserved this prehistoric movement in extraordinary detail. Scientists have documented more than 16,000 dinosaur footprints at the Carreras Pampa tracksite in Torotoro National Park, making it the world’s largest known…

Montesquieu was a French Enlightenment thinker who advocated the separation of powers among the legislature, executive, and judiciary to prevent abuse of power. In 1995, a young online bookseller operating from a Seattle garage put a simple sign on its office wall: “Get Big Fast.” To a casual observer, it looked like a typical Silicon…

forever checmicals(Representative image) Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are often called “forever chemicals” because their ultra-strong carbon–fluorine bonds make them stubbornly resistant to breakdown in the environment. They’re prized in industry for repelling water, oil and heat, but that same durability means they persist in soil, water and living tissue long after use. Now, a…