Normally, nearly 11 inches of rain falls on Chicago in the spring. This year, the city has only measured 2.32 inches and is on track to set a record for the driest spring ever.

Researchers said their marine laboratory experiments with a small species of shark confirm long-held speculation that sharks use magnetic fields as aids to navigation — behavior observed in other marine animals such as sea turtles.

Southside Recycling has long planned a move to the Southwest Side. But last week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency asked Mayor Lori Lightfoot to conduct an environmental justice assessment in the community before allowing the company to operate.

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, met privately with Pope Francis on Saturday, afterward calling the pope a “compelling moral authority on the subject of the climate crisis” who has been “ahead of the curve.”

The beloved pair of piping plovers have established a nest, smack in the middle of habitat only just protected for the birds this spring. 

For pregnant women, fetal monitoring devices are a cumbersome array of wires and tape that require constant adjustment and, quite literally, tether the patient to a hospital bed. A team of researchers at Northwestern University is working to change that.

Look to the night sky this week for fascinating celestial show: the solar system’s three inner planets — Mercury, Venus and Mars — will all be visible. Use the crescent moon as a guide to find them in the sky.

NASA’S Ingenuity helicopter takes flight on Mars. We get an update on the space agency’s most ambitious mission to date on the Red Planet from local astronomer and space enthusiast Mark Hammergren. 

It’s illegal to forage in Cook County forest preserves. Every year, 100 citations are issued for poaching, a significant number of which involve ramps, the wild leek that gave Chicago its name.

Chicagoans notched a whopping 12,000 observations of plants, animals and fungi in the 2021 City Nature Challenge, coming in well ahead of Moscow, Prague, London and Tokyo.

Eager to the turn the page on the Trump years, the Biden White House is launching an effort to unearth past problems with the politicization of science within government and to tighten scientific integrity rules for the future.

Specially trained “turtle dogs” took part in a field study of threatened ornate box turtles at Nachusa Grasslands, one of the species last homes in Illinois.

Three calves, with their distinctive reddish-brown coats, were spotted this week at Midewin. Bison calves are typically born in April or May.

Scientists in Australia have identified an enzyme that could help millions of people around the world. Rabiah Mayas of the Museum of Science and Industry discusses that and other science stories making headlines.

The 240-pound, 100-year-old, nearly 7-foot-long sturgeon is making headlines. But fish that size used to be common in the Great Lakes and maybe, thanks to restoration efforts, they will be again.

Chicagoans in the Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods are under a water boil order possibly until Friday, following a service disruption at the Roseland Pumping Station.