Finland is slowly making a name for itself as an innovator, albeit a low-key one, regarding wireless electricity transmission, which aims to transmit power via the airwaves without having to use cables, sockets or connectors.

Although the concept remains more than than a little exotic-sounding, scientists scientists from Finland are slowly but surely pushing the boundaries of said technology via experimental research.

We will almost certainly hear about ICE and Trump and his oil wars in Conan O’Brien’s running commentary or in the acceptance speeches during Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony. But will anyone talk about climate change?

An analysis by Good Energy, a story consultancy, points to a good chance that someone will. In advance of the awards ceremony on March 15, the group conducted a “climate reality check” (sometimes referred to as the Bechdel-Wallace test for climate fiction) on the films that received nominations for Academy Awards.

To pass the ‘climate reality check,’ a movie must depict climate change in some way, and a character in the story must recognize it.

In what it describes as “a defining year for climate at the Oscars,” the team found that 31% of the eligible nominees, a record high, acknowledged climate change.

An oil spill has contaminated a 230-kilometer stretch of beaches along the Gulf Coast states of Veracruz and Tabasco. 

Hektoria Glacier (Antarctica) retreated 8 kilometers (5 miles) in only two months; one-half of the structure collapsing in record time. This is the fastest glacier collapse ever, and the message to the world is very clear: Global Warming looks like it’s ahead of schedule. (Antarctica Just Saw the Fastest Glacier Collapse Ever Recorded, ScienceDaily d/d February 26, 2026)

The world climate system is starting to unravel faster than expected. Sea level rise estimates by major institutions such as the IPCC should probably be tossed out the window. Global warming is not waiting around for guesstimates. Hektoria Glacier is real time evidence that the consequences of global warming are ahead of expectations.

The pledge is nonbinding and unlikely to bring immediate relief on electricity bills. Making it real will fall to utilities and regulators.

In an effort to quell blowback on data centers, President Donald Trump announced at a White House roundtable on Wednesday the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” a set of nonbinding promises that Big Tech companies signed to keep household utility bills from skyrocketing.

“They need some P.R. help,” Trump said of the data centers, “because people think that if a data center goes in, their electricity prices are going to go up, and that’s not happening. It’s not going to happen.” 

The pledge was signed by top officials from Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Elon Musk’s xAI. While Trump has previously described it as “mandatory,” the pledge is voluntary, unlike a statute or enforceable federal regulation. 

Almost a kilometer under old coal mines in Lorraine, France, scientists have found a pocket of natural hydrogen, called white hydrogen. Early tests suggest it burns clean and could be cheaper than factory-made green hydrogen.

Some reports call it “the last fuel of humanity”, a resource that might power our world for thousands of years. Behind that phrase, researchers and energy companies are racing to measure how much hydrogen is there and how hard it will be to extract.

NTT and MHI achieved record 15% efficiency beaming 152 W of power over 1 kilometer, using laser wireless power transmission system.

Nearly every part of the United States is getting walloped by wild weather or just about to be slammed by a stretch of weather extremes, from flooding rain to record heat and late-season snow.

Days of downpours have begun in Hawaii. The Southwest will soon bake with day after day of record 100-degree-plus (38 Celsius-plus) heat. Two storms will dump snow by the foot over northern Great Lakes states. And the dreaded polar vortex will again invade the Midwest and East with soul-crushing Arctic chill.

This forecast of extremes comes as weather whiplash has already hit much of the East.

Florida environmentalists are sounding the alarm that the Florida Legislature once again appears poised to dramatically reduce funding for Florida Forever, the state’s main program for buying land for conservation.

Although the Legislature allocated $18 million last year, the House’s proposed FY 2026/27 budget defunds the program outright, while the Senate allocates $35 million, with that money directed to easements on private agricultural lands only, eliminating traditional land acquisition.

Instead, GOP lawmakers would direct hundreds of millions of dollars to the Rural and Family Lands Protection program, which allows agricultural landowners to permanently preserve their land from development.

“While these conservation easements are good for cattle, provide linkages to wildlife, and keep these properties from being converted to subdivisions and shopping malls, they do not allow for public access,” noted St. Petersburg Democratic Rep. Lindsay Cross on the floor of the House last week.

In this month' column, we follow a sensor buoy into a pond and find out how the power of extended senses can shape our understanding.

We have hundreds of ponds on Cape Cod, and a pilot sensor project was conducted in several of them last year.  Once the ice clears, an expanded 2026 program will begin.

The company behind this, Subtidal, spun out of WHOI about three years ago. Scientist Matt Long and business partner Casey Wilson were passionate about measuring carbon removal in the ocean and developed a sensor-based process for identifying these changes.

But they kept hearing about concerns a little closer to shore, ones that screamed out for the kind of data their sensors could capture, and their analytic tools could turn into knowledge. They pivoted to focus on algae blooms and pond health.

Researchers say they spotted three endangered blue whales off the coast of Southern New England in a 24-hour period last month.

Observers with New England Aquarium said it's the first time they have documented blue whales in their southern New England survey area.

Seeing blue whales outside of their Canadian feeding grounds is rare in the Atlantic, documenting them in two different areas of the ocean just hours apart is a first for Research Scientist Orla O’Brien.

In spring 2025, torrential rains fell on central Romania’s Harghita County in Transylvania, causing the waters of the Corund River to flood its banks. Speaking to reporters at a press conference in early May, county prefect Petres Sandor estimated that the river, which winds through towns nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, had swelled to more than a hundred times its normal flow.

The river had also begun to seep into the Praid salt mine, home to one of the largest salt reserves in Europe and the economic lifeblood of surrounding communities.

In the weeks that followed, access to the Praid mine was suspended, staff and nearby households were evacuated, and the underground dams built in haste to stave off flooding collapsed. Officials made efforts to redirect the river and save the mine, but the damage had been done: By July, the flooded mine was forced to close indefinitely.

Romans were the first to mine for salt at Praid beginning around the 2nd century CE. When the area was under Hapsburg rule in the mid-1700s, larger-scale extraction began, and it continued until the mine’s recent closure, producing up to 100,000 metric tons of salt per year at its peak.

But in the modern era, Praid was not only an operational salt mine. It was also one of the region’s most popular tourist destinations, attracting half a million visitors a year to repurposed caverns that housed—nearly 122 meters (400 feet) belowground—a medical center; an Orthodox church; a movie theater; a museum; and an adventure park featuring arcades, zip lines, and a planetarium.