Stories by Alex Ruppenthal

Conservation-minded volunteers in suburban Barrington are attracting snakes to their own backyards – on purpose.

Nearly four years in the making, a plan by Southeast Side residents to build a park for their four-legged friends is coming to life.

With the 30th anniversary of the Discovery Channel’s popular “Shark Week” fast approaching, the Shedd Aquarium is calling on visitors to help protect a key habitat for “one of the world’s most misunderstood species.”

A dozen states have enacted laws granting criminal immunity to those who enter vehicles to rescue domestic animals that appear to be suffering. Should Illinois be the 13th? 

In what is an extremely rare occurrence, a male weedy sea dragons recently accepted an egg transfer from a female and is now carrying 46 fertile eggs on his tail.

To help mark its 125th anniversary, the Field Museum is preparing to release a gin made in the spirit of one of the biggest events in Chicago history.

Later this month, the red planet will be just 35.8 million miles away – the brightest and closest it’s been to Earth since 2003.

New analysis of a child’s foot from an ancient fossil shows that human ancestors had adaptations that allowed them to climb trees, similar to their apelike cousins.

A new transportation and logistics hub is expected to bring about 2,000 jobs to Chicago’s Southeast Side, but some area activists are taking issue with the way the project was introduced.

Despite the growing number of farmers markets in Illinois and across the U.S., a number of reports in recent years show that sales across the country are down. How markets are adapting to reach today’s consumers.

Hours before the resignation Thursday of EPA head Scott Pruitt, a federal judge ruled that Pruitt had violated the Clean Air Act by allowing Illinois and two other states to avoid conflict-of-interest rules. 

The scandal-ridden EPA chief resigned Thursday amid a number of ethical and legal violations over his travel spending, security costs and ties to industry lobbyists. 

The ouster last weekend of Chicago Animal Care and Control’s executive director, whose short tenure resulted in the fewest instances of euthanasia at the agency since that data has been recorded, has got folks howling across the city.

With summer heating up, Chicagoans can visit these air-conditioned facilities to catch a break from the heat. 

Slight increases in temperature could lead to the extinction of bees in southwestern states in the near future, according to a new study from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Facebook denied an advertisement by Elmurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center for an event on data privacy, flagging the ad as "political content."

Shedd Aquarium is rolling out several new outdoor programs this summer aimed at bringing Chicagoans closer to local waters and aquatic life.

Water testing at a Chicago day care center showed at least one sample 16 times higher than the lead level allowed in bottled water, according to a new report from an environmental watchdog group. 

Nearly three years after becoming the first corpse flower to bloom at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Alice the Amorphophallus is on the verge of blooming again.

Chicago has seen 6 inches of rain in June, well above the historical average of about 2.5 inches, according to data from the National Weather Service.

Guided by the camouflaging abilities of chameleons, two Northwestern chemistry professors have developed a tiny, color-changing laser that could improve visual displays in TVs and smartphones. 

Nearly two dozen laboratory mice will be launched into orbit next week as part of a Northwestern-led research mission to learn more about the physiological effects of living in space. 

A new program aims to create or preserve nearly 2 million acres of habitat across the U.S. for monarch butterflies, which could face extinction in 20 years. 

A new 20,000-square-foot urban agriculture facility aims to expand job training programs and healthy food options in one of Chicago’s most troubled neighborhoods. 

Brookfield Zoo welcomed two newborn Amur leopards in April. The male cubs are scheduled to make their public debut in mid-July. 

As part of its investigation into high levels of manganese on the Southeast Side, the EPA will hold an open house this week to talk about soil sampling and sign residents up for testing.