Divers conclude a yearlong project to remove underwater trash from Lake Tahoe, finishing with more than 25,000 pounds of cellphones, sunglasses, aluminum cans, sex toys, and more.

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii may manipulate phenotypic characteristics of its human hosts to make them appear more sexually attractive to noninfected people.

A “markedly higher proportion” of parasitic worms are named after male scientists. 

First-quarter profits for oil giant Saudi Aramco surge by 80 percent.

The mining company Anglo American unveils a monster hydrogen-battery hybrid truck capable of hauling 320 tons of ore from the company’s open-pit platinum mine in South Africa. 

Automakers are piping fake engine noises into the cabs of new electric or fuel-efficient vehicles because drivers want to hear the engine roar.

Nearly 43,000 Americans were killed by cars in 2021, 10 percent more than in 2020 and the highest number in 16 years. Pedestrian deaths were up by 13 percent, and bicyclist deaths by 5 percent. 

Three endangered Florida panthers are struck and killed by vehicles in a single week, raising this year’s vehicular death toll to 14. Only 230 remain. 

Despite Florida’s manifold environmental disasters (starving manatees, red tide, rising sea level, endangered panthers being killed by cars, toxic leaks), the state’s Environmental Regulation Commission has not met in more than five years.

Two people in Florida are arrested after a video showing them popping party balloons on a yacht and throwing the scraps into Biscayne Bay goes viral.

Invading Russian soldiers destroy the National Gene Bank of Plants of Ukraine in Kharkiv with its 160,000 varieties of seeds. 

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that distributed small-scale wind turbines could provide over half of US electricity needs. 

The Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak fire burning east of Santa Fe is now the largest in New Mexico history.  

A 600-foot-deep sinkhole with a forest at the bottom is discovered in China.  

One million Americans have died of COVID-19. At least 234,000 of those deaths could have been prevented had the victims been vaccinated.