After Saturday, the Field Museum’s newest dinosaur fossil will be off display until fall while staff works on building a permanent exhibit for the Chicago Archaeopteryx.

Members of the first wave of cicadas have done their thing: They came, they molted, they screamed, they bred, and now they’re dying.

The Field Museum has more than 10 million specimens in its insect collection and — believe it or not — not a single 13-year periodical cicada among them. So what better time than now to fill that gap?

The egg is the product of a recent pair bond between native-born Imani, who hatched at Montrose Beach in 2021, and Searocket, one of the 5-week-old captive-reared piping plover chicks released at the beach last year.

While financing for the Chicago Bears’ proposed new lakefront stadium remains in doubt, opponents of the plan have sent an unequivocal “hands off” message regarding any use of lakefront property for private interests.

If you wouldn’t eat a vegetable grown in that soil, don’t eat a cicada.

Some of the early “They’re here!” excitement has definitely given way to “Wait, they’re staying for how long?” At the opposite end of the spectrum, Chicagoans are wondering why they got left out of the great 2024 emergence.

The tiny critters are almost impossible to spot, but you can’t miss their bubbles.

Chicago’s own Imani has been joined by at least two other plovers, one believed to be a female. Let the mating games begin.

Since April 1, 2023, the landscaping community in Evanston has been tasked with making a drastic change for climate and noise concerns: switching from gas- or propane-powered leaf blowers to electric. But not all landscapers are feeling pressure from the ban. The largest landscaper in Evanston also filed the most complaints against fellow landscapers. 

May 23 is World Turtle Day. Sure, it’s a fake holiday, but it’s a good reason to take a closer look at the many species that make their home in northern Illinois.

In case you haven’t heard, the cicadas are coming, and things are about to get loud. WTTW News explains.

Periodical cicadas use trees’ lifecycles to “count” years. But when trees get duped by climate change, so do the insects. Could it lead to new broods?

Carbon capture and sequestration technology is used to take carbon dioxide — a powerful greenhouse gas — and move it through pipelines before storing it deep underground. Several groups are pushing for a bill that would regulate the emerging technology at the same time some companies are pitching pipeline projects to state regulators.

Attempts by private groups or individuals to get into a water provider’s network and take down or deface websites aren’t new. More recently, however, attackers haven’t just gone after websites, they’ve targeted utilities’ operations instead.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has announced its plan to host a cicada-themed art show during the Illinois State Fair and is seeking entries from the public, looking for interpretations of cicadas or broods.