Science Has a Name for What’s Plaguing the Reflecting Pool - The Atlantic

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:The climate of the American Southwest is driven in large part by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). While many experts assumed the PDO was cyclical, new studies have found that anthropogenic climate change could “lock” the PDO in a negative phase, drying out the Southwest. It’s possible that the upcoming “very strong” El Niño could knock the PDO into a positive phase, but scientists warn that the region will remain in a long-term process of aridification. On September 10, 2026, satellite images from the NASA-USGS Landsat 8 captured the stunning consequences of the 25-year-long megadrought that has gripped the southwestern United States. Lake Powell, the serpentine reservoir formed by Glen Canyon dam that stretches across the border of Utah and Arizona, appears like a small trickle compared to its previous stature as one of the country’s largest man-made lakes. Today, the water’s surface stands at a record low 3,517.24 feet, only 30 feet from “minimum power pool” (when the dam no longer produces hydropower).

David Hearn, cleared of allegations that he intentionally damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, is now fighting to save a public golf course

Whether we are waiting for a car windshield to defrost in winter or a warm drink to cool down, how long it takes for an object to settle into a stable, even temperature within its environment (thermal equilibrium) depends on numerous factors. These can include surface area, the material properties of an object and airflow.

Roman is designed to return about 1.4 terabytes of data daily, with observations becoming publicly available after processing. A collaboration of roughly 900 astronomers is preparing to search those observations for planets, black holes and cosmic explosions. The telescope’s surveys could sharpen measurements of dark energy, but their major discoveries still lie ahead. A distant star briefly brightens. A supernova appears in a galaxy. Somewhere else, an unseen object bends passing starlight. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to capture such changes across crowded stretches of sky, then make its observations available for others to investigate. The challenge will be keeping up. Roman is expected to return about 1.4 terabytes of data daily during operations. Jessica Lu, an astronomy associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and David Weinberg of Ohio State University have organized a collaboration of roughly 900 astronomers to prepare. Their effort connects two ambitions: finding unusual objects in the Milky Way and understanding why the universe’s expansion is accelerating.

For the first time, scientists have observed bleached corals on the brink of death fully recover through brief contact with healthy clones. Ghostly white corals returned to full health in a laboratory setting within seven weeks, the fastest documented recovery to date, according to a study published in Science Advances.