Picture yourself on a trail on Storm King Mountain in upstate New York. After scampering over rocks, you stop to admire the oaks that grace the landscape. Departing from the trailhead in the morning, you ascend toward the summit through a thick blanket of fog until you reach its cliffs.

Across the American West, winter is no longer what it used to be. In 2026, scientists warned of a historic “snow drought”—a phenomenon where snowpack fails to accumulate even when precipitation occurs, often because temperatures are too warm for snow to form.

Medical experts around the globe are engaged in vital detective work: to figure out why cancer is increasingly developing among young people. Meanwhile, lifestyle is coming under suspicion as one of the possible contributing factors.

For more than two centuries, our standard of living, measured by our national income, has been the defining measure of economic success, associated with rising incomes, expanding opportunities, and proliferating comforts.

Every spring and fall, billions of birds embark on one of nature's most remarkable journeys. Tiny songbirds cross continents, shorebirds traverse oceans, and raptors ride invisible currents over mountains and deserts.