Early detection of the coronavirus is crucial for reducing its spread, even as vaccinations ramp up. Now, researchers have created a DIY smell and taste challenge – and all you need is your morning cup of joe.

Winter has arrived with a vengeance. The next 48 hours will bring a one-two punch of snow and plunging temperatures.

After getting walloped by two big snowstorms, the area is now bracing for bitter cold later this week. We asked Argonne National Laboratory climate scientist Scott Collis what to expect, and what’s driving the arctic chill.

It’s Groundhog Day. Will it be six more weeks of winter or an early spring?

An Amur tiger that underwent hip-replacement surgery only to dislodge the orthopedic implant within hours has been operated on again, officials at a suburban Chicago zoo said Monday. 

After years of work, pedestrians and cyclists can now stay on the lakefront trail as it crosses the Chicago River – though the full Navy Pier flyover isn’t finished just yet.

Parts of the Chicago area notched more than a foot of snow over the weekend. It won’t have much chance to melt, with a blast of arctic air heading our way toward the end of the week.

Interest in houseplants has grown during the pandemic and is helping plant parents new and old thrive during a difficult year. We visit the Plant Salon in Noble Square for a look.

For the second time in a week, Chicago is digging out after a massive snowfall.

City officials sought to reassure Chicagoans on Saturday they were prepared for a major winter storm to hit the city, which could dump between 5 inches and 9 inches of heavy, wet snow through Sunday.

There are quirky details to be found in bark, twigs and buds that can turn a walk in the woods or around the block into a game of “name that tree.”

The snow is likely to hit late Saturday afternoon and intensify rapidly, with accumulations of more than six inches possible, according to the National Weather Service.

Portions of Big Marsh Park were once heaped high with waste from the area’s now defunct steel mills. The soil has since been remediated, and now the Chicago Park District is working to find out if native plants can grow and thrive there.  

In the most ambitious U.S. effort to stave off the worst of climate change, President Joe Biden signed executive orders Wednesday to transform the nation’s heavily fossil-fuel powered economy into a clean-burning one, pausing oil and gas leasing on federal land and targeting subsidies for those industries.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Wednesday revealed its annual indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe, stating the COVID-19 pandemic showed how ill-prepared the global community is to handle a substantial threat.

The Chicago area finally got its first true snowstorm of the season — about two to four weeks behind schedule. But climatologist Trent Lord said in other ways, the storm is a textbook example of the range of precipitation a major winter weather event can produce.