The Planet (on, and off)

A groundbreaking medical procedure for those with kidney stones will soon be offered at the University of Washington after more than two decades of research. It will also give astronauts the go ahead they need from NASA to travel to Mars. It’s a groundbreaking procedure to get rid of painful Read more…

As the conflict between Israel and Hamas reaches its third week, internet connectivity in Gaza is getting worse. On Thursday, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Palestinian internet service provider NetStream “has collapsed days after the operator notified subscribers that service would end due to Read more…

Volvo Cars is urging political leaders to agree a timeline at the upcoming U.N. climate summit to phase out fossil fuels. The 131 companies, which have nearly $1 trillion in global annual revenues, wrote in a letter published on Monday that attendees at the COP28 summit must commit to reach Read more…

Since the 1980s, researchers have observed significant periods of unrest in a region of California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains characterized by swarms of earthquakes as well as the ground inflating and rising by almost half an inch per year during these periods. The activity is concerning because the area, called Read more…