A new National Academy of Science study says that 13 years after a massive BP oil spill fouled the Gulf of Mexico, regulators and industry have reduced some risks in deep water exploration in the gulf but some troublesome safety issues persist.

The idea of tinkering with the air to cool Earth's ever-warming climate seems to be gaining momentum.

Republicans’ faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An eight-year project to carefully repeat early but influential lab experiments in cancer research has reached a conclusion.

AdThe report looks at three possible ways to cool the air: Putting heat-reflecting particles in the stratosphere, changing the brightness of ocean clouds and thinning high clouds. “I honestly don’t know whether or not it’s going to make sense,” said committee chairman Chris Field of Stanford University. AdTexas A&M University’s Andrew Dessler sees geoengineering as a safety feature for the planet, like car airbags you hope to never need. “Sometimes you have to examine very risky options when the stakes are as high as they are with climate change.”Ad___Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education.

The Nobels, with new winners announced starting Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, often concentrate on unheralded, methodical, basic science. It’s that type of basic science that the Nobels usually reward, often years or decades after a discovery, because it can take that long to realize the implications. Basic research comes first. “Without basic science, you won’t have cutting-edge applied science,” said Frances Arnold, a Caltech chemical engineer who won the 2018 Nobel in chemistry. John Mather, who won the 2006 physics Nobel for cosmology, which is the study of the origin of the universe and is thus the ultimate basic science, said nearly everything we use around us is there because of basic science.