Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The largest soaring land bird in North America, and also one of the most endangered, the California condor has never been observed incubating an egg—until now. A camera now records Sisquoc and Shatash, two condors nesting at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The public can see each parent take a turn patiently sitting on the nearly nine-ounce egg, sometimes nudging it with its beak.

CREDIT: NASA/SDO and the AIA Consortium

A storm is raging on the Sun’s surface. Last Sunday it erupted in the largest solar flare in seven years. Now particles that could have an impact on communication and homing pigeons are bombarding Earth. 

For the next two decades there will be no new uranium mining claims on public lands around the Grand Canyon National Park, a move that will protect more than one million acres, the Obama administration announced yesterday.

Three decades of federal ethanol subsidies ended on January 1st without much of a fight from supporters. The reason: Soaring prices thanks to a mandate that an increasing amount of ethanol be mixed into gasoline.

Talks held in Durban, South Africa to negotiate a global accord on climate regulations ended last Sunday, nearly two days after they were scheduled to conclude, resulting in an agreement—surprisingly—between developed and developing countries.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For the first time in two years, a male jaguar was seen in the U.S. two weeks ago. Snarling from a mesquite tree, where Donnie Fenn’s hunting dogs bayed at the 200-pound jaguar before backing off and watching it leave, showed Fenn and his daughter, as well as wildlife managers and officials, that some cats are still making their way north across the border.

Swirling, shifting, swooping flocks of starlings, called murmurations, are the stars of a viral video taken by two girls from Ireland who canoed across River Shannon in October. These birds show us not only beauty in nature, but they also help explain the science of flock movement. [Note: the video was taken off of YouTube, but click on the link above to see it on Vimeo.]

©2011 Microsoft Corp/Pictometry Bird's Eye, ©2010 MDA Geospatial Services Inc., ©2011 Google-Imagery, ©2011 Digital Globe/USDA Farm Service Agency/Geo Eye/Map Data

The Obama administration announced yesterday that it would postpone the decision on whether to approve the nearly 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline that would bring heavy crude from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, traversing six states along the way.

When the fiery red, orange, and yellow leaves fall from the trees and land on your lawn, pilling them high for jumping can be a family affair. And when you’re sufficiently exhausted from diving in the heaps of foliage, you can use the leaves to nourish your garden, shrubs, and trees. Instead of putting them in a bag, mow, mulch, mix, or compost them.

Courtesy of Catan

If you’ve ever played the addictive and award-winning board game The Settlers of Catan, you know that Earth’s terrains—forests, fields, mountains, hills, and pastures—produce resources essential to winning (not to mention surviving in the real world). Continuing in that vein, today the game’s producer and publishers, along with the Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization, announced a new scenario where black gold, a helpful but potentially damaging resource for players, will be one of the resources.