Articles by Jessica Leigh Hester

In 1917, two young girls with a camera pranked the world.

Newly found and already almost lost.

Devastation on the ground affected the sky, too.

Goodbye, glaciers.

A fresh perspective on the fragility and resilience of our world.

Even Magic Kingdoms need urban planners.

The dwarf planet Ceres is studded with cryovolcanoes.

To understand what's happening with the beloved critters, first you have to find them.

A camera is live-streaming the storm.

Among the elaborate plans for his death were 26 Victorian mourning rings. What happened to them?

When people post about bugs and birds, ecologists can gain some solid data.

Three colors of yarn, seven panels, and all 88 constellations.

A beginner's guide to extracting flavors from herbs and flowers.

When store-bought animals are released, they may go from pet to pest.

From the Namib Desert to Maine, fog is teeming with life.

Researchers are comparing age-old herbaria with muddy riverbanks to track decades of ecological change.

Postage-sized portraits of life during Reconstruction.

What have we learned about the cosmos over the past 60 years?

Listen in as they swat away mosquitoes and brave a dark forest to eavesdrop on echolocation.

New research shows ancient embalmers were using resins and gums far earlier than we thought.

Reuniting stumped readers with the books from the edges of their memories.

When the red planet comes close to Earth, some people have tried to tune in to see if it has anything to say.

A massive mollusk recently found in the Hudson River is the latest example of two centuries of appreciating behemoth bivalves.

Meet the smallest straphangers.