Author name: Tasha Hayden

Twenty years ago today, I watched TV coverage of a probe descending toward the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, while outside my home in Utah snow dusted a rocky mountain outcrop I’d nicknamed Titan — both after the moon and a painting of it. When the probe — named Huygens, for the 17th […]

L.A. Metro has suspended fare collection on its trains and buses through Sunday as wildfires continue to ravage parts of the county, officials said Saturday. Yet people wanting to take a train south to Orange County or north to Ventura and Santa Barbara were disappointed. Transportation officials shut down all Amtrak and Metrolink trains between

Amid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880. It’s the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record has been set, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “Between record-breaking temperatures and

Even for those lucky enough to get out in time, or to live outside the evacuation zones, there has been no escape from the fires in the Los Angeles area this week. There is hardly a vantage point in the city from which flames or plumes of smoke are not visible, nowhere the scent of

You don’t have to live close to a wildfire to be affected by its smoke. With severe winds fanning the fires in and around Pacific Palisades, the Pasadena foothills and Simi Valley, huge swaths of the Southland are contending with dangerous air quality. Wildfire smoke can irritate your eyes, nose, throat and lungs. The soot

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week set maximum levels for lead in baby foods such as jarred fruits and vegetables, yogurts and dry cereal, part of an effort to cut young kids’ exposure to the toxic metal that causes developmental and neurological problems. The agency issued final guidance that it estimated could reduce

Anyone hoping for a clear path forward this year for NASA’s imperiled Mars Sample Return mission will have to wait a little longer. The agency has settled on two potential strategies for the first effort to bring rock and soil from another planet back to Earth for study, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday: It

It’s Monday morning, the start of your work week. You’ve put the finishing touches on that big report, prepared for that imminent presentation. But it’s likely that there’s one aspect of the job you’re not ready for: the marathon of sitting at your desk all day. Time to start training. Because while it might not

A new report linking fluoridated drinking water to lower IQ scores in children is sure to ratchet up the debate over a practice that’s considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. The report published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics synthesizes the results of dozens of research studies that have been released

Alcoholic drinks are a leading cause of cancer and should carry a warning about that risk on their labels, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday. Alcohol is a factor in nearly 100,000 newly diagnosed cancers each year and roughly 20,000 deaths from the disease, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an advisory intended to