Nature & Wildlife
The continental United States and many global regions experienced their hottest summer on record in 2026, driven by human-caused climate change and an intensifying El Nino, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Report published on September 9, 2026. Average temperatures were roughly 3 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century baseline.
Conservation
Arachnids—such as scorpions, harvestmen (daddy longlegs) and spiders—often trigger feelings of fear or disgust. Despite such reactions, these animals play an essential role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. They act as vital food sources, master pest controllers and drivers of human and soil health.
Nature & Wildlife
Ethereal ghosts, bodiless brains, spooky spiders, hairy wolves, slimy eyeballs, creepy cyclops, shadowy bats and severed limbs. What more could you want for Halloween? I’m guessing not much, and there’s a one-stop shop for all of it: science.
Nature & Wildlife
One of the scariest movies I have ever seen is the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. In 1985, it was followed by the flick Return of the Living Dead. That movie created the pop-culture trope that zombies specifically crave and shout for brains.
Nature & Wildlife
As soon as the month of October starts, your thoughts probably turn to spooky fun as we lead up to October 31 and Halloween.
Nature & Wildlife
On August 4, 2026, a Manhattan-sized ice island broke away from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier after years of progressing fractures had weakened its floating ice tongue. This Arctic iceberg will now be tracked as it drifts, breaks apart and potentially affects shipping routes.
Nature & Wildlife
I’m not a fan of escaping winter; in fact, I think it’s an endangered “species” that we need to cherish while we still have it. But millions of birds appear to disagree with me. Every year, they migrate in huge flocks to escape the season.
News & More
There are so many reasons to love the nighttime sky. For one, there’s the peace that sitting in the dark and watching the stars brings you.
Nature & Wildlife
Antarctica has always been—for lack of another, less trite description—“otherworldly.” It’s clear, clean air and wild, untouched mountains hardly seem part of this planet. But that depiction of the icy continent is usually meant in a metaphorical sense. Now, however, it has taken on a more literal meaning.
Nature & Wildlife
While I have never considered insects my favorite category of fauna, I have to admit that some “fun facts” about them intrigue me. For example, ants can lift and carry more than 50 times their own weight. While gathering food, a bee may fly up to 60 miles in one day.
Conservation
Wildfires are complicated. On one hand, they can be extremely destructive forces. On the other, they are natural events that certain animals and plants have evolved to depend on for ecological balance. And then, you have to add climate change into the equation.
Nature & Wildlife
The Encyclopedia Britannica currently defines language as “a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed) or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression and emotional release.”
