Nithya Raman, the Democratic socialist-backed candidate, defeated incumbent Karen Bass to win the Los Angeles mayor election. Bass conceded on Thursday. Nithya Raman met husband Vali Chandrasekaran when he was 17. (X/@liz_gar_cia) Raman, the Indian-born urban planner, first won a seat to the Los Angeles City Council in 2020. She’s been an advocate for the … Read more
A bird built for city life As it turned out, mynas could do more than just eat caterpillars. In a 1933 description posted on the university’s page, E. L. Caum, an ornithologist, wrote that the bird also eats house scraps, fruits, grains, insects, and grubs. Its diverse diet seems to make it easy for the … Read more
In the early 1900s, California planted the ice plant on railway embankments as a means to control erosion, and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) later planted it in roadside areas. This succulent plant, known as Carpobrotus edulis, is native to the coastal regions of South Africa, which has the same type of climate as … Read more
A new animal can often seem like a small addition to a landscape, but things can go wrong very fast. Aoudad are native to northern Africa, but were introduced into the wild in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, in 1957, according to a 2025 Texas A&M AgriLife Extension fact sheet. Since then, these long-horned sheep have … Read more
Some plants look like a great idea until they take over the yard. Hawaii learned that lesson on a huge scale with gorse, a thorny shrub from western Europe. A 2000 Hawaii Department of Agriculture news release said gorse was introduced to Hawaii from England or Scotland in the early 1900s for sheep forage. By … Read more
A shrub with bright red berries sounds like something nice to plant in a garden. But in Florida, one such bush became a big problem. Brazilian peppertree was introduced into the state as an ornamental plant, according to the USDA Agricultural Research Service. USDA estimates that more than 700,000 acres in Florida are infested with … Read more
The seeds were being carried by teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was finally making her long-awaited journey into space after a 22-year wait A seed does not look like much. Tucked into a packet, it is barely noticeable, carrying the promise of a plant in a form that seems almost impossibly small. But in 2007, millions … Read more
About 4.25 billion years ago, the Moon possessed a powerful core dynamo with a field strength comparable to or even exceeding modern Earth’s. This magnetic field, generated by circulating molten metal, completely shut down as the interior cooled and core crystallisation ceased, leaving the Moon without a global magnetic field in the present. While it … Read more
When a severe drought forced Queensland dairy farmer Libby Rough to sell 40 cows, her family faced a frightening financial crisis. Without the regular income from milk sales, everyday costs such as groceries and school fees quickly became hard to pay. To keep the farm going, Rough opened just four unpowered campsites along the river … Read more
For years, Terence “Terry” Kahn lived in a way that gave little indication he had accumulated millions of dollars. The Indianapolis man lived in a modest home, drove an old Honda and avoided owning a cellphone because he considered it an unnecessary expense. Even his longtime attorney and friends were surprised by the size of … Read more