Stories by Meghan Bartels

Understanding the psychology of ambiguous loss can help people struggling with grief and depression in the wake of the 2024 election results

The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election could set the climate agenda, reshape public education and shift the dynamics of global science collaboration.

Pesky leaks on the International Space Station aren’t the most serious issue facing U.S. human spaceflight

The Spanish brought peaches to the U.S., but Indigenous peoples spread the fruit across the eastern half of the U.S.

A tree’s fall palette offers a glimpse at its health and the weather it has experienced in a given year

As Hurricane Milton barreled across Florida, it triggered dozens of tornadoes. Here’s how that process occurs

Hurricane Milton hit Florida as a major storm, bringing devastating storm surge and rainfall to the state

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is on the rise after a lull at the beginning of the COVID pandemic

Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump offer starkly different responses to gun violence

Food science can explain why mozzarella melts like a dream while feta and ricotta don’t

Inland flooding from tropical cyclones, even at high altitudes, is a major worry—and one that scientists don’t know enough about

Looking silly when they run saves birds energy—and some dinosaurs may have done the same

Invasive spotted lanternflies are spreading across the metro areas of New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., despite professional and amateur attempts to reduce their numbers

On opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Central Europe and North Carolina have both been drenched by torrential rains

Using the Comstock Act to nationally ban abortion would defy modern public opinion and the law’s historical interpretation, experts say

Meteorologists predicted a busy Atlantic hurricane season—and a recent lull in activity doesn’t negate that

Not all cats are hydrophobic

Scientists re-create the last moments of a manateelike animal that was eaten by both a crocodilian and a shark

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched to the International Space Station in June and expected eight days in space. Now these stranded astronauts finally have a ride home

We’re in a summer COVID surge, and updated vaccines are due soon. Here’s a quick update on what you need to know

As bird flu spreads in cats, cows and other animals, it has more opportunity to adapt to easily infect humans

A new analysis of Stonehenge’s “Altar Stone” suggests Neolithic people walked or sailed some 500 miles to transport the six-ton boulder

West Nile is the most common mosquito-borne disease in the U.S. Here’s what to know about the infection

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been stuck on the ISS since they launched to the station in early June. Now the space agency is close to deciding how to bring them back