You've heard or read about Salmonella in the media, and its dangers are often blamed on reptiles. What exactly is it? Is it dangerous? Should you be concerned about it? Watch this video for a clear and balanced orientation on this often-misunderstood bacterium.
Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment, but it is also one of the most commonly found heavy metals in wastewater, deposited there by inappropriate disposal and arsenical pesticides, for example. Whether by nature or contamination, an estimated 200 million people worldwid ...more
There is a secret world hidden just beneath the surface of every pond, lake, and stream. Those waters are filled with wails of hideous creates murdering other hideous creatures for food and sport. Beautiful animals like dragonflies and damselflies that you see in the light of ...more
Learn how to build a turtle raft to attract water turtles for sun bathing. Pull in an old raft and rebuild it to withstand continuous use for the next couple of years. Turtles use it almost immediately. This is nature watching made simple! The turtles using this raft are Easte ...more
Halloween will be here in just over a week, which means next week these Scrabble Bingo of the Days will become more horrific. This week, there's just a few relevant Halloween seven-letter words for your Scrabble vocabulary, referencing witchcraft and one of the eeriest horror ...more
It's been a minute since Michael Bay released his tragedy of a remake of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As a huge fan of the cartoon and the movies from the '90s, I have made it a point to not watch the latest this franchise has to offer—I'm certainly not in the business of rui ...more
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began on April 20, 2010, was the largest maritime oil spill in history. Killing 11 people and discharging 4.1 million barrels of oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico, the event was an unparalleled personal, environmental, and busines ...more
There's a broken canister of mutant ooze leaking down into the sewers! But don't worry because this sticky slime is non-toxic, and it's so easy to make, a three-year-old can do it! Video: . Inspired by Dr. Anne Helmenstine with About.com, my kids and I found and slightly modif ...more
Creating awesomely messy slops of DIY slime and curdled fake blood isn't something new—we even have guides on making Dr. Seuss-friendly Oobleck and the radioactive green ooze that created my childhood favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (minus the radioactive part, of course ...more
Albert Einstein once said, "We know less than one thousandth of one percent of what nature has to reveal to us." While this still lies true, that fraction has inspired man since the beginning of human life. You can see the reflection of nature in the poems we read, the theatr ...more
Food can smell great before, during, and after cooking. A pot of stew simmering away on the stove will tantalize you all afternoon, and there's nothing better than the smell of fresh-baked cookies lingering in the house for hours. One place you don't want to smell food? On yo ...more
We've worked hard to reduce the flow of toxic chemicals into our waterways, which means no more DDT and other bad actors to pollute or destroy wildlife and our health. But one observation has been plaguing scientists for decades: Why are large quantities of one toxic chemical ...more
Seagrass may help your favorite beach stay a little less toxic. A new study, led by Joleah Lamb, a postdoctoral researcher in the Harvell Lab at Cornell University, found that coastal seagrasses reduce levels of pathogens dangerous to humans and marine organisms in near-shore ...more
As headlines focus on melting glaciers and rising water levels caused by global warming, climate change is quietly taking its toll on the nearly invisible occupants of this planet, the microbes. In a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers fro ...more