The Columbian

Science & Technology

In this 2019 photo provided by researcher Barbara Klump, a sulphur-crested cockatoo lifts the lid of a trash can while several others watch in Sydney, Australia. At the beginning of 2018, researchers received reports from a survey of residents that birds in three Sydney suburbs had mastered the novel foraging technique. By the end of 2019, birds were lifting bins in 44 suburbs.

Crafty cockatoos master, teach dumpster diving

July 27, 2021, 6:05am Life

A few years ago, a Sydney scientist noticed a sulfur-crested cockatoo opening his trash bin. Not every resident would be thrilled, but ornithologist Richard Major was impressed by the ingenuity. Read story

The common grackle is one of the species being affected by a disease killing birds.

Scientists stumped by disease killing songbirds

July 27, 2021, 6:02am Life

A group of songbirds recently turned up dead in Nottingham, Chester County, Pa. Read story

In this undated photo made available by NASA on Thursday, July 22, 2021, clouds drift over the dome-covered SEIS seismometer of the InSight lander on the surface of Mars. The quake-measuring device is providing the first detailed look at the red planet's interior, revealing a surprisingly thin crust and a molten core. In a series of articles published in July 2021, scientists reported that the Martian crust is within the thickness range of Earth's. Mars' mantle, meanwhile, is roughly half that of our own much bigger planet, while the core -- measured from the dusty surface to dead center -- is more than 1,000 miles smaller.

Marsquakes offer detailed look at red planet’s interior

July 24, 2021, 3:22pm Nation & World

A quake-measuring device on Mars is providing the first detailed look at the red planet's interior, revealing a surprisingly thin crust and a hot molten core beneath the frigid surface. Read story

Some facts about cows and global warming

July 20, 2021, 6:05am Life

I keep coming upon this statistic that states livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global gas emissions. Read story

Bobbi Laderer, a bird intern at the Audubon Nature Institute's Species Survival Center in New Orleans, waves and runs to demonstrate alarm for Tornado, a 42-day-old endangered whooping crane chick, on Tuesday.

Big birds back in action

July 20, 2021, 6:00am Life

A year after pandemic precautions all but halted work to raise the world’s most endangered cranes for release into the wild, the efforts are back in gear. Read story

These 3D perspective views of the seafloor bathymetry from multibeam sonar offshore of South Carolina show numerous grooves carved by drifting icebergs. As iceberg keels plow into the seafloor, they dig deep grooves that push aside boulders and piles of sand and mud along their tracks. Sediment cores from nearby buried iceberg scours were used to determine when these icebergs traveled south along the coast. (Jenna Hill/U.S.

Icebergs once flowed past Outer Banks to Fla.

July 20, 2021, 6:00am Life

A series of mysterious lines carved on the seafloor off North Carolina’s Outer Banks have been identified as “highly unexpected” proof that icebergs once filled the horizon along the East Coast. Read story

FILE - In this Jan. 11, 1961 file photo, then Marine Lt. Col. John Glenn reaches for controls inside a Mercury capsule procedures trainer as he shows how the first U.S. astronaut will ride through space during a demonstration at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research Center in Langley Field, Va. Glenn's birthplace and childhood hometown in Ohio are celebrating what would have been the history-making astronaut and U.S. senator's 100th birthday with a three-day festival from July 16 through July 18, 2021.

Events expanding to mark 100 years since John Glenn’s birth

July 16, 2021, 12:51pm Life

A three-day celebration of what would have been history-making astronaut John Glenn’s 100th birthday began Friday in his birthplace and childhood hometown in Ohio, even as additional events were announced to mark the occasion. Read story

FILE - In this April 25, 1990 photograph provided by NASA, most of the giant Hubble Space Telescope can be seen as it is suspended in space by Discovery's Remote Manipulator System (RMS) following the deployment of part of its solar panels and antennae. The Hubble Space Telescope should be back in action soon, Friday, July 16, 2021, following a tricky, remote repair job by NASA. The orbiting observatory went dark in mid-June, with all astronomical viewing halted.

Hubble Space Telescope fixed after month of no science

July 16, 2021, 8:37am Nation & World

The Hubble Space Telescope should be back in action soon, following a tricky, remote repair job by NASA. Read story