Joel Achenbach

Source of E.coli-contaminated romaine lettuce still a mystery, FDA says

May 1, 2018 at 10:09 p.m.

Eight sick prisoners in Nome, Alaska, have provided a clue to authorities about the origin of a nationwide outbreak of dangerous E. coli infections from romaine lettuce, but U.S. officials...

7 million Americans at risk of man-made earthquakes, USGS says

June 21, 2019 at 3:29 p.m.

Earthquakes are a natural hazard -- except when they're man-made. The oil and gas industry has aggressively adopted the technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to shatter subsurface shale...

New evidence suggests 9th planet lurking at edge of solar system

June 21, 2019 at 2:58 a.m.

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology announced Wednesday that they have found new evidence of a giant icy planet lurking in the darkness of our solar system far beyond...

Friend of San Bernardino gunman expected to be charged Thursday

June 16, 2018 at 2:31 p.m.

¿U.S. law enforcement officials said that gun charges are expected to be announced Thursday against Enrique Marquez, who bought the assault rifles used in the San Bernardino attack. It is...

Failed SpaceX rocket launch another setback for industry eager for the future

June 22, 2019 at 12:35 p.m.

It was a beautiful day on the cape, sunny and hot with patchy clouds — good weather for rocketry. SpaceX's unmanned Falcon 9 rocket looked great as it tore a...

Frank Drake, 84, is the beloved dean of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) set. Drake's home in Aptos, Calif., includes a stained glass window with the Arecibo message. Drake also created the message -- a simple binary encoded message broadcast into space by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974.

Are we alone? Do we want to know?

June 23, 2019 at 7:01 a.m.

It was near Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1960 that a young radio astronomer named Frank Drake conducted the first extensive search for alien civilizations in deep space. He aimed...

What ‘The Imitation Game’ didn’t tell you about Turing’s greatest triumph

June 16, 2018 at 4:34 a.m.

Freeman Dyson, 91, the famed physicist, author and oracle of human destiny, is holding forth after tea time one February afternoon in the common room of the Institute for Advanced...

Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond 4 of 9 ‘planetary boundaries’

June 20, 2019 at 6:09 a.m.

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a "safe operating space" for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new...

For some Cuban exiles, the old toast ‘Next year in Cuba!’ is suddenly more plausible

June 24, 2019 at 7:47 a.m.

For so long, many of the exiles believed they would go back to Cuba in battle gear. They would vanquish Fidel Castro by any means necessary. "Next year in Cuba!"...

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