Ph. The Ras al-Khair water desalination plant in eastern Saudi Arabia is just one of many along the Persian Gulf coast. Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images Michael Christopher Low, University of Utah Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf region use the fossil fuels under their desert
On a test track in southern Germany, engineers watch as an automated vehicle drives through simulated heavy rain. As the vehicle pushes through sheets of water and poor visibility, researchers are recreating one of the toughest sensing challenges for automated driving. “Bad weather is one of the situations the car will face, and
Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo; Madeleine Orr, University of Toronto, and Robert Steiger, University of Innsbruck The 25th Winter Olympic Games are upon us, with Italy set to host the Games for the fourth time. The schedule at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics is set to look similar to previous iterations of
The world’s oceans do far more than support vital marine ecosystems and provide food and recreation. They help regulate the Earth’s climate, absorbing vast amounts of heat and CO2, acting as one of the planet’s most important buffers against climate change. Yet despite this vital role, scientists still struggle to track exactly how
Wikus Kruger, University of Cape Town A South African solar manufacturer, ARTsolar, is taking the government and several renewable energy developers to court. The case focuses on local content rules for renewable energy projects. ARTsolar says it invested in new manufacturing capacity because it expected these rules to lead to orders for locally
Ph. Boston and much of the U.S. faced a cold winter blast in January 2026. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowell and Judah Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) A severe winter storm sweeping across the central and eastern U.S. in late January 2026 is threatening states
Outside the mountain town of Sabiñánigo in northern Spain, an abandoned chemical factory stands on land still scarred by decades of Lindane production – a pesticide now banned worldwide – which left behind thousands of tonnes of toxic waste. Production ended in the 1980s, but the pesticide’s main by-product, hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), continues to
When Professor Alicja Krzemień set out to turn one of Poland’s largest coal-mining waste heaps into a thriving meadow, she faced an uphill battle. Together with fellow researchers in an EU-funded collaboration called RECOVERY, her team revitalised the barren terrain at the Janina mine in Libiąż, southern Poland. They applied soil substitutes, aiming
Forty metres beneath the sea off north-western Italy lies one of the country’s best-preserved World War II shipwrecks. The Equa, an Italian cannon-equipped submarine chaser, sank with no casualties after being accidentally rammed by a German ship in 1944. The vessel now hosts rich marine fauna that attracts divers and fishers. The site
terekhov igor / shutterstock James Heydon, University of Nottingham Wood-burning stoves are booming in the UK, a cosy response to high energy prices and cost of living pressures. But this comes with a hidden cost. So-called domestic burning is now a leading source of one of the most harmful forms of air pollution,