Power out, high voltage lines on the ground, weeks until electricity is restored in some places: The dismal state of power in Hurricane Ida’s wake is a distressingly familiar scenario for Entergy Corp., Louisiana’s largest electrical utility.

Dig those images of flowers, birds and trees out of the iCloud and enter them in the forest preserve district’s annual photo contest. Winning images will be featured in the district’s 2022 calendar. 

With close to 100,000 birds expected to pass over Chicago this weekend, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and its partners have issued a “lights out” alert for the city, encouraging building owners and residents to turn off as many lights as possible between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

As beach season winds down in Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium is hosting a series of weekend cleanups to clear the shoreline of a summer’s worth of litter and debris.

People who don’t study mammals for a living may be surprised to learn there’s more than one kind of skunk — and scientists affiliated with the Field Museum have uncovered members that had been hiding in plain sight.

A stunned U.S. East Coast woke up Thursday to a rising death toll, surging rivers and destruction after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, filling low-lying apartments with water and turning roads into car-swallowing canals.

Rowers, kayakers and other users of the Chicago River are getting a real-time look at one measure of water quality in the system that weaves through downtown and several neighborhoods. 

Louisiana residents still reeling from flooding and damage caused by Hurricane Ida scrambled for food, gas, water and relief from the sweltering heat as thousands of line workers toiled to restore electricity.

Louisiana communities beginning the huge task of clearing debris and repairing the damage inflicted by Hurricane Ida are facing the dispiriting prospect of weeks without electricity in the oppressive, late-summer heat. 

Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks brought hundreds of people trapped by Hurricane Ida’s floodwaters to safety Monday and utility repair crews rushed in, after the furious storm swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid.

According to the National Weather Service, drier air is moving into the region, bringing with it more comfortable weather.

Monty arrived in Texas a week ago, and now members of Audubon Florida have confirmed that Rose has been spotted at her winter home. 

Palos Preserves has been named an Urban Night Sky Place by the International Dark-Sky Association. The site emits nearly 1,000 times less light than downtown Chicago, with four times as many stars visible in the night sky than can be seen in the city.

Babbling baby bats. Simulated rats. The impressive memory of cuttlefish. And why, counter to popular belief, some key mental abilities appear to actually improve with aging. University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin returns to help us understand some of the latest science stories making headlines.

Charles Ethan Porter, the only late-19th century Black painter of still lifes and landscapes, translated scenes from nature onto canvas. Now the Garfield Park Conservatory has reversed the process, using plants in place of paints, to transform its Artist’s Garden into a living interpretation of Porter’s work.

Jupiter and Earth are currently about as close as they get to each other. The outer planet is visible from sunset to sunrise and is among the brightest objects in the sky.