The bad news: Florida is overrun by 15-foot snakes. The good news: the state has a small army of python hunters on the job—and they’re using some techy new solutions to tackle their quarry.  The python problem started decades ago with a handful of irresponsible pet owners. People started releasing their Burmese pythons into Florida’s [...]

A U.K.-based research company just investigated 10 top travel booking sites — including Airbnb, Expedia, Groupon, and TripAdvisor — and ranked them on how much they support notoriously cruel vacation experiences, like elephant rides The results might surprise you.  We’ll get to those in a minute. But first, a brief overview of the problem: If [...]

Last week, a four-year-old Andean bear escaped from his habitat in the St. Louis Zoo, sending the entire facility into an hour-long lockdown.  Guests and staff were corralled into safe indoor facilities while the zoo staff worked to secure the bear, named Ben. According to news network KMOV-TV, Ben was ultimately subdued with a tranquilizer [...]

The newest crop of Survivor castaways includes plenty of big personalities, accomplished competitors and ruthless rivals laser-focused on the challenge to win $1 million. Yamil “Yam Yam” Arocho, 35 San Juan, Puerto Rico Yamil “Yam Yam” Arocho is the first Puerto Rican currently residing in the Caribbean to play Survivor in the show’s history. He [...]

When a train loaded with toxic chemicals crashed near East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month and poisoned a local stream, many local residents thought the first few days of cleanup would be the hardest. But now, weeks later, far more sinister after-effects are beginning to appear. And this time, it’s not just fish that are [...]

Dire wolves aren’t just fantastical beasts that were made up for Game of Thrones. They were real-life creatures that once roamed the Americas—and scientists have just discovered some new clues as to what they were really like. First, a little background: Real-life dire wolves only went extinct about 10,000 years ago. They were part of [...]

In 1985, a convicted drug smuggler named Andrew Thornton allegedly dropped 75 pounds of cocaine from a plane along the Georgia-Tennessee border before he died from a parachuting accident. The stash was eventually discovered by a bear who reportedly ingested a few grams of the powerful drug. The bear was later found deceased in the [...]

Bear Grylls took on a different kind of adventure this week, walking the red carpet at the premiere of the documentary Finding Michael in London.  In signing on to the project, the survivalist-turned-executive-producer felt personally connected with the film’s subject matter: In 1999, the titular 22-year-old Michael Matthews became the youngest Briton to climb Everest, [...]

Last month, the Snowbowl ski area just north of Flagstaff, Arizona made headlines when its single-day lift ticket surpassed $300. In this case, the high price tag was the result of “dynamic pricing,” a strategy that allows popular ski resorts to charge more for tickets as demand surges. It may make economic sense, but not [...]

A Kansas zoo has just announced that two of their Indian rhinos have given birth. Zoo staff are heralding the event as a major win for the species, which is critically endangered. The calf, named MarJon, was born in Tanganyika Wildlife Park on February 16th. She weighed a whopping 80 pounds at birth and was [...]