In the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, waste pickers are treating trash like treasure. The so-called cartoneros provide vital recycling services while earning a livelihood for their families.

The community science program Plants of Concern is designed to keep Illinois’ rare plants from going extinct.

Bits and pieces of Halley’s Comet, which last swung by Earth in 1986, will be visible as meteors in upcoming days. The Aquarid meteor shower will peak in the pre-dawn hours of May 5 and 6.

A proposed change to the United States’ Endangered Species Act could threaten not only to reverse decades of progress but accelerate the pace of loss, experts said.

The latest tactic in Chicago's ongoing war against rats is to attack the problem at the source — with birth control instead of poison.

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County has mapped the largest specimen of each tree species identified in the preserves and has made it easier for people to find these “champions.”

Double-crested cormorants have been thrilling Chicagoans lucky enough to witness thousands of the birds streaming along the Lake Michigan shoreline — wave after wave, lasting for several minutes — as they migrate further north.

The City Nature Challenge is a friendly global competition designed to showcase the biodiversity in urban yards, parks and nature preserves.

The bleaching event has been so severe that NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program has had to add levels to its bleaching alert scale to account for the growing risk of coral death.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers said they were able to detect signs of sulfur-based molecules called dimethyl sulfide or DMS, which on Earth are only produced by life, primarily marine phytoplankton.

Monarchs left Mexico in late March and have now crossed into Illinois, according to reports.

Roger Snyder, who worked at the Department of Energy for decades, will leave the Fermi Site Office in May, WTTW News has confirmed. The site manager works closely with the director of the national lab as part of the federal government.

The visitor center reopened Monday after closing for repairs in November 2023 following damage from a fire.

The first meteor shower of the year is here, with the Lyrids peaking late tonight into the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday.

The Chicago Park District said the best viewing will likely run through April 27.

Imani hatched at Montrose Beach in 2021. He has faithfully returned every year since, and last year he finally made a love connection.