Articles by Jessica Leigh Hester

The 2017 eclipse across North America generated some surprising data.

No one knows how artists pulled off a trick over 100 years ago.

What can we learn from wipes, oils, and fats when they overwhelm the arteries of the modern world?

The Roosevelt Island artwork pays homage to her reporting, especially her inside look at a city asylum.

A new book is part ornithology guide, part ode to the misunderstood urban birds.

It is a key part of local culture, and looks like it was colored with a crayon.

An interactive, crowdsourced atlas plots vanished transit routes.

How one museum keeps a rare Pacific footballfish looking sharp.

The country's extensive fossils include early ancestors of whales, the largest mammals on the planet.

The western false asphodel has an appetite for insects, but it’s not a great time to be a meat-eating plant.

This slim 19th-century home, just 10 feet wide, is seeking new owners who aren’t afraid to get close.

A new project emphasizes practical designs that may stave off desertification.

But whatever you do, don’t call them rainbows.

The project transforms human waste into biogas, and allows participants to buy everything from bananas to socks.

One in Indonesia has been carrying a rubber ring since at least 2016. Here’s how the litter might be affecting the animal’s life.

The double whammy of drought and water regulations has led some farmers to sacrifice thirsty crops—with visually striking consequences.

The ghostly sight tells a story of escape, survival, and a post-flood feast.

To get to know a new town, start with its charming local oddities, like a herd of toy horses in a field.

More than a century ago, a couple of guys had some beer and an idea.

And why is it fouling the coast around Istanbul?

It was all thanks to a gardener, a wagon, and a sense of pandemic-era camaraderie.

Deep in a Jamaican cave, scientists are getting to the bottom of that question.

Meet the generally harmless translucent residents of Thoreau's favorite giant puddle.

And that's bad news for the snails that produced them.