PBS NewsHour - Science

Is there renewed focus inside the Trump administration, NASA and the private sector to revive travel to the moon? There are signs, like a single reference in President Trump's address to Congress, that seem to suggest that a space journey may be sooner than we might think. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what we could learn and why it’s back on the table.

In March, British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to begin the process of having the United Kingdom formally exit the European Union. While a majority of voters in the UK voted to leave the EU, voters in Northern Ireland favored remaining, in part because of fears that Brexit could affect a peace agreement between Catholics and Protestants. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Patricia Sabga reports.

Astronomers have identified seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star that's just a mere 230 trillion miles from our own planet, raising the tantalizing prospect of life in a solar system beyond our own. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how they made the discovery and what it means.

Since the election, members of many scientific and research groups have been archiving government data they believe could be jeopardized by the new administration. Their fear is that without data, you can’t have environmental regulation. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien took a look at one of those efforts underway at New York University.

For some patients, the body’s own natural immune system is being used to fight their cancer. Meet a woman who has lived years past her doctors’ prognosis, thanks to the emerging field of immunotherapy. Then Hari Sreenivasan discusses the promise and limits of the treatment with Matt Richtel of The New York Times and Jeff Bluestone, director of the UCSF Hormone Research Institute.

In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, British researchers have monitored changes in the world’s atmosphere from a remote lab in Antarctica for more than 60 years. Now, for the first time the state-of-the-art facility will close -- at least temporarily -- after a nearly 30-mile long crack opened up on the ice shelf.

A third of the planet’s coral reef ecosystems are at risk of being damaged by warming sea temperatures and subsequent coral bleaching. Is it possible for these sea creatures to survive and adapt? NewsHour’s science producer Nsikan Akpan and producer Matt Ehrichs investigate this question on a voyage deep below the Atlantic Ocean.

For C.J. Hardin, an Army veteran, dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder is an everyday feat. After years of pills and therapy failed to help his disorder, Hardin knew he needed an alternative. So he turned to a surprising substitute that's at the forefront of a revolution in neuroscience and medicine: psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.

In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, visit an Ohio mine that provides the de-icing rock salt that stops your road from becoming a virtual slip-and-slide in the winter.

In our news wrap Wednesday, data from NASA, NOAA and others show that 2016 was the hottest year since records have been kept, making it the third record-breaking year in a row. Also, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, nominee to be the next U.N. ambassador, said in her confirmation hearing that Russia committed war crimes in Syria and cannot be trusted.

Limitless power with virtually no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. If that sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. For decades, researchers have looked for ways to control, confine and sustain fusion as an energy source. But there has been a lot of progress on a small scale, building on years of physics understanding and progress. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.

President Obama is passionate, and vocal, about combating climate change. As his tenure draws to a close, science correspondent Miles O’Brien reviews the administration's environmental policy -- from the 2009 “cap-and-trade” climate bill, to the 2015 Paris accord, to executive orders on greenhouse gas emissions -- in assessing the president's legacy.

Imagine you could edit a mouse’s genes to be resistant to Lyme Disease. The mouse would breed and evolution would take its course, leading to the extinction of the disease. That’s the vision for scientists developing CRISPR, technology that allows scientists to rewrite the code of life. William Brangham talks to Michael Specter who wrote about CRISPR for The New Yorker.

“Hidden Figures” is a story about reaching for the stars while fighting racial and gender barriers. The new movie follows the careers of three black women who worked at NASA’s Langley headquarters in Virginia during the 1950s and ‘60s to help launch the first American into space. Long overlooked, their story is finally being told. Jeffrey Brown reports.

The next generation of nuclear power is coming, as concerns about climate change bring the industry out of hibernation. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on how new startups and young scientists are hoping to develop solutions for safely generating vast amounts of nuclear energy.