Philadelphia has begun pulling large amounts of power for city-owned buildings from a solar array on farmland near Gettysburg.

The project, begun nearly six years ago under former Mayor Jim Kenney, started producing electricity specifically for the city a few weeks ago in Adams County after testing was complete. It is expected to provide up to ...Read more

CHICAGO — Heads down and attentively scanning the ground, a small group of schoolchildren walked through an expanse of grass dotted with yellow dandelions and toward the concrete steps leading to Lake Michigan.

Andrew Scarpelli, a biologist, ambassador for the Alliance for the Great Lakes and guide for this cleanup effort, asked the children ...Read more

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why can’t we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up? – Georgine T.

It’s true that lava is hot enough to burn up some of our trash. When Kilauea erupted on ...Read more

The abandoned fieldstone walls of New England are every bit as iconic to the region as lobster pots, town greens, sap buckets and fall foliage. They seem to be everywhere – a latticework of dry, lichen-crusted stone ridges separating a patchwork of otherwise moist soils.

Stone walls can be found here and there in other states, but ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Every year, when spring bleeds into summer, the desert heat awakes a chorus of Las Vegas singers that rival any residency you’ll find on the Strip — cicadas.

But these critters are not the ones you’ve probably been hearing about.

This year has recently been dubbed the year of “cicada-geddon” as two broods of cicadas ...Read more

A fast-emerging field of climate research is helping scientists pinpoint just how many dollars from a natural disaster can be tied to the historic emissions of individual oil companies — analysis that is the centerpiece of new state efforts to make fossil fuel companies pay billions for floods, wildfires and heat waves.

When a flood or ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Last fall, the Catalina Island Conservancy labeled its plan to eliminate the island's invasive mule deer population, by employing helicopter-bound hunters armed with high-powered rifles, "bold and ambitious."

But the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors chose other descriptors, decrying the proposal in an opposition letter as...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX has launches set for Saturday and Sunday from the Space Coast.

First up from is a Falcon 9 on the Galileo L12 mission carrying global navigation satellites for the European Commission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A targeting 8:34 p.m. Saturday with a backup Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

The first-stage booster is ...Read more

California may be a leader in the fight against climate change, but the state is years, even decades, behind other states when it comes to granting environmental rights to its citizens.

While a handful of other state constitutions, including those of New York and Pennsylvania, declare the people’s rights to clean air, water and a healthy ...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves.

Standing in the middle of a solar farm in Yolo County, Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the ...Read more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It’s not just another ride for a pair of veteran NASA astronauts who arrived to the Space Coast ahead of their flight onboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, who both joined NASA’s astronaut corps more than two decades ago, will be the commander and pilot for ...Read more

SEATTLE —Grizzly bears will soon return to the North Cascades.

The National Parks Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service filed a decision Thursday outlining a plan to capture three to seven grizzlies from other ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains or interior British Columbia and release them in the North Cascades each summer for five to 10 ...Read more

Wildlife officials said they will not remove a gray wolf potentially connected to recent livestock killings, despite requests from stockgrowers.

Two of the gray wolves reintroduced to Colorado’s Grand County in December — including one suspected in recent depredations — are likely “denning” and in the breeding process, Colorado Parks ...Read more

The discovery of viral fragments of avian flu virus in milk sold in U.S. stores suggests that the H5N1 virus may be more widespread in U.S. dairy cattle than previously realized.

The Food and Drug Administration was quick to stress on April 24, 2024, that it believes the commercial milk supply is safe. However, highly pathogenic avian...Read more

Burning coal to generate electricity is rapidly declining in the United States.

President Joe Biden’s administration moved Thursday to speed up the demise of the climate-changing, lung-damaging fossil fuel while attempting to ease the transition to cleaner sources of energy.

A suite of new regulations adopted by the U.S. Environmental ...Read more

Did you receive a mail-order package this week? Carriers in the U.S. shipped 64 packages for every American in 2022, so it’s quite possible.

That commerce reflects the expansion of large-scale retail in recent decades, especially big-box chains like Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Home Depot that sell goods both in stores and online. ...Read more

Do great white sharks change their behaviors in different environments, or do the apex predators follow the same routines regardless of location?

Researchers recently set out to solve this shark puzzle, as they reportedly discovered great white behaviors by attaching smart tags and cameras to their fins.

Great whites adapt their movements and ...Read more

It was a warp-speed tour of what's happening with artificial intelligence in medicine.

Chris Manrodt, an R&D manager for Philips' medical imaging business in Plymouth, Minnesota, last Friday gave a presentation to several hundred Twin Cities software developers and health care executives and then declared, "I feel like I've said about 50 ...Read more