MIAMI — The invasive Burmese pythons plaguing Florida have an almost supernatural ability to absorb skeletons and scientists say they have finally found out how it’s done.

Turns out the intimidating predators have “previously unknown cell type” in the walls of their intestines that completely dissolves skeletons, according to a study ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Budget cuts, staff reductions and other sweeping changes from the federal government are posing real threats to California’s environment and progress against climate change, state officials said Thursday.

At a gathering of the state’s top leaders in wildfire response, water resources, natural lands and clean energy, they ...Read more

For nearly a month, hundreds of thousands of Iowans have not been allowed to water their lawns — even though there’s no drought.

Local authorities previously asked the public to refrain from washing cars and filling pools. And some cities turned off splash pads in the height of summer heat.

While such measures are common during dry periods...Read more

PITTSBURGH — One bird spectacle readily observable in Allegheny County right now comes in the form of 100 purple martins swirling above the fields and their condos at Harrison Hills Park.

Nesting in colonies, the handsome dark purple bird is the largest swallow in the nation, boasting a 16-inch wingspan and gobbling up thousands of insects.

...Read more

As sizzling temperatures sweep across Southern California this week, University of California, Los Angeles researchers have released an alarming new finding — the duration of heat waves is increasing faster than global warming itself.

Researchers found that not only are heat waves getting hotter, but they're also becoming longer at a rate ...Read more

The story of Great Lakes whitefish is not a happy one, state fish biologist Stephen Lenart warned on Thursday, but it needs to be told as their numbers decline.

Lenart presented the uncomfortable facts about the iconic Great Lakes species during a Michigan Natural Resource Commission meeting on Thursday.

The long-lived fish are prized table ...Read more

If you’ve played the video game “The Last of Us” or seen the television adaption, then you’ve heard of cordyceps — a “zombie” fungus that infects its host and takes over its body. This leads to the main plotline of a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with “infected” humans shooting fungal spores from every pore.

The cordyceps ...Read more

There’s nowhere to park right now at the International Space Station for NASA’s next Commercial Crew Program launch, but a slot should clear next week allowing for the launch of Crew-11 as early as July 31.

That’s because the private Axiom Space Ax-4 mission that arrived to the space station two weeks ago could depart as early as Monday, ...Read more

Microsoft plans to donate $4 billion worth of cash, technology and training to enhance artificial intelligence education, a substantial bequest as the Redmond, Washington-based software giant aims to make billions more off a technology it expects to be on par with the introduction of electricity.

Microsoft President Brad Smith announced the ...Read more

The vast tract of land off Route 85 was meant to be a symbol of Made-in-America manufacturing. A billion-dollar battery factory was going to rise, bringing thousands of new jobs. The business announced, “Get Ready Arizona,” the governor said the state was thrilled and even the U.S. president gave the project a shoutout.

But here, in the ...Read more

MIAMI – One of the largest flocks of flamingos in a decade was recently spotted in the Everglades by avian ecologist and restoration scientist Mark Cook.

Cook said he stumbled upon a group of 125 American flamingos while conducting a wading bird survey along the Florida Bay coastline last week. The flock is believed to be the largest one ...Read more

A new dinosaur fossil at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science was found buried hundreds of feet under the facility’s parking lot in January, making the herbivorous animal’s remains the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever discovered in the city.

Museum crews came across the partial-bone fossil while conducting a geothermal drilling test...Read more

Surrounded by the low hum of swamp bugs, Anthony Sleiman pointed his camera to the west.

The conservation photographer was more than 15 miles from the state’s newly built immigrant detention center, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. But just before 10 p.m. on July 1, he could see the site’s glow with his naked eye.

Sleiman, whose night-sky ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new tool that can compute the “biological age” of human organs by processing a single vial of blood.

The tool, unveiled in Nature Medicine Wednesday morning, was developed by a research team spearheaded by Tony Wyss-Coray. Wyss-Coray, a Stanford Medicine professor who ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Maryland state parks are in their busy season, with yearly attendance still millions more than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were discovered in and after the pandemic, and we stayed discovered,” Tim Hamilton, the business and marketing manager for the Maryland Park Service, said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “...Read more

President Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Gold Standard Science” provides a directive to restore a higher standard for scientific research and discovery. Yet despite the concerns it raises, the very standards that it describes already exist and are widely applied.

Section one of the order describes why the administration ...Read more

This week a reader writes, “My wife and I have reached an age where keeping track of passwords is quite a chore. Could you please comment on a reputable password manager product? Are subscription products better and safer than freebies? We use Apple devices for communication and Microsoft platforms for computing. I do not feel comfortable ...Read more