Stories by Alex Ruppenthal

Customized activity monitoring devices are helping Brookfield Zoo staff study sleeping patterns and other behaviors in giraffes. 

A new $450,000 federal grant program partners CPS students with university professors to study the impact of toxic metals on Chicago neighborhoods. 

Citizen scientists can help researchers discover new distant galaxies as part of the Adler-led Zooniverse project. 

Chicago swimmers are invited to participate in an international event this month that highlights the role of swim lessons in preventing drowning.

With the end of the school year just weeks away, the Museum of Science and Industry is calling on Chicago’s “kid superheroes” to unite and defeat summer’s top villain: the “evil Dr. Brain Drain.”

Chicago, Pittsburgh and dozens of other U.S. cities are standing by Paris despite President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he will withdraw the U.S. from the landmark climate change agreement.

On a mission from Chicago, two Shedd Aquarium staffers have been providing around-the-clock care for a sea otter pup rescued in Alaska. 

Chicago elected officials and environmental leaders react to President Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. 

Maifest, a traditional German festival to usher in spring, kicks off Thursday in Lincoln Square. 

Visitors to Shedd Aquarium’s seasonal exhibit can dip their hands into a pool and discover the texture of this unique sea creature. 

The striped “forest giraffe” is the 28th okapi to be born at the suburban zoo since 1959, when it became the first zoo in North America to have a birth of the species.

Officials in Whiting, Indiana, think their city is about to become a whole lot more popular.

Chicago didn’t quite crack the top 10, but the city did receive four out of five “park benches” and moved up to No. 11 in the latest ranking of park systems in the nation’s 100 biggest cities.

Same-day water testing conducted at UIC's School of Public Health will give Chicagoans more timely alerts about water quality at their favorite beaches this summer. 

For the first time, Brookfield Zoo is exhibiting a pangolin, a rare animal native to Africa and Asia.

A state criminal justice agency was awarded nearly $200,000 in grant funding as part of a federal initiative to prevent ideologically motivated violence, but critics say the program discriminates against Muslims.

An Illinois criminal justice agency secured a nearly $200,000 counter-extremism grant without approval from several “partner” organizations listed in its grant application. 

Tweaking Illinois' landmark energy bill would trigger more than $2 billion in wind farm construction, a state senator says. 

A first-of-its-kind study shows that forests in Chicago face significant threats from climate change, with native trees especially vulnerable to increases in temperature, precipitation and other changes.

Legislation proposed this week in the Illinois Senate would require electronics manufacturers to pay for permanent recycling drop-off sites set up by counties.

Northbrook native Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor for the world's first commercial spaceline, returns to Chicago to receive Adler Planetarium's Women in Space Science Award. 

The city’s neighborhood cleaning program kicked off this year with additional graffiti-removal crews and new chemical-blasting trucks.

A company on the West Side of Chicago has been cited for improperly storing chemicals and threatening public health, according to a suit filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Organizers of a clean water summit in Chicago next week hope to draft a plan for replacing the city's nearly 400,000 lead water pipes. 

Microphones placed across the Chicago area by the Lincoln Park Zoo are tracking the return of bats to the region this spring. 

A west suburban forest preserve is dispatching an army of freshwater mussels to clean up contaminated waters. “They may be small, but they have enormous beneficial effects on the lives of other organisms,” said one staff member.