My Amazon order invited plenty of questions, and for good reason. Four chemicals are classified in the United States as second-generation anticoagulants: brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone. According to the EPA’s rules, companies that register rat poisons containing any of these active ingredients are not allowed to sell or distribute them “in channels of trade likely to…

Ticks have been described as “nature’s dirty needle” and a “cesspool of pathogens.” The more Telford wades around that cesspool, the more alarmed he grows. [Full Article]

For most people, the accident report closed the books on Flight 375. For Laybourne, it marked the start of a remarkable scientific journey that was at times as thrilling as it was bizarre. She’d go on to establish the field of forensic ornithology, and the methods she developed for feather identification would be used to…

Golden eagles are one of the most protected species in the US – so what happens when one turns up dead in a field? [Full Article]

Is he a white-collar criminal and corrupt politician, as federal prosecutors allege? Or is he one of the best mayors in Fall River history, as he insists? Maybe, somehow, Jasiel Correia could be both. [Full Article]

In the fall of 2016, Bradley Gerwig’s phone began to ring and ring. Morning, noon, and night, callers from around the world bombarded the 77-year-old’s landline at his modest ranch home in Keymar, Maryland, a blip of rolling farmland an hour northwest of Baltimore. Most callers were polite but firm as they implored Gerwig to turn…

For the birds of Florida, this blitz of exotic predators poses an existential-scale threat. The Burmese pythons, which stalk wading birds in the Everglades, have become so menacing that the state has hosted derby-style competitions to catch them. Farther north, Nile monitors—the largest lizard in Africa—have been terrorizing a population of Burrowing Owls in the…

To the outside world—those who have gazed through the windows of the Tannery’s grand Back Bay location at shelves lined with designer heels—Lewis’s story might sound shocking. Ever growing and expanding, the Tannery has been the picture of a successful Boston business, and Hassan’s story is in some ways the American Dream writ large. But…

It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and Geoff LeBaron is lugging a spotting scope and tripod through Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, a former Naval airfield on the southern coast of Rhode Island. Bordering one of New England’s largest salt ponds, Ninigret can offer up a spectacular variety of species, even in the short, cold days of…

Having now spent the bulk of his career at zoos, Coe knows they aren’t infallible institutions, and he’s well aware of the larger ethical debates around captivity. But he also believes deeply that zoo animals are refugees from man’s war on nature — a war that only seems to be increasing in intensity — and it’s critical to provide them…

As the ceremony came to a close, the crowd huddled around the bike and Everett asked everyone there to place their hands upon it. Her voice shook with tears while she led them in a final prayer. Some in the crowd clasped their hands and clenched their jaws, wondering whether the driver who killed Kurmann…

It’s easy to dismiss rats as just another cost of city living, but make no mistake: They’re shockingly destructive pests, teeming with harmful, disease-spreading bacteria and, according to one study, inflicting $19 billion worth of damage across the U.S. each year. Their relentless burrowing can erode a building’s foundation; their urine spoils tons of food…

In what felt like an instant, the Duffs had been thrust into the heartbreaking realm of rare diseases, where treatments are few and money for research is hard to come by. As it turns out, there are thousands of rare diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet pharmaceutical companies aren’t…

Lynnfield residents responded to the murder by closing rank. Immediately following the shooting, the town seized on the fact that someone in their midst was renting his home to God-only-knows-who and clamped down on all short-term rentals. Within days, Lynnfield’s building inspector drafted a cease-and-desist letter claiming that the homeowner, Alex Styller, had violated the…

Pepper Trail is the first to admit he has an unusual skill set. Give him a single feather or a small fragment of a claw or a cooked hunk of breast meat, and he’ll tell you the species of bird from which it came. As the world’s leading criminal forensic ornithologist, Trail is asked day…

The more I chewed it over, though, the distinction between aging and dying became blurrier. After all, it is accurate to define aging as one of the biggest risk factors for an assortment of potentially fatal ailments. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, cancer, stroke—the older you get, the more likely it is that you’ll be affected…

Having lived much of its life on the ropes, the Herald is no stranger to tough times. The staff is socialized for scarcity and accustomed to shoestring budgets. There’s no doubting Purcell’s commitment to maintaining a voice and viewpoint that’s not John Henry’s. But as he pushes 70 and the prominence and profitability of conservative tabloids wane,…

This time, though, Papadellis is up against far tougher obstacles than a mere surplus of fruit. Along with the industry’s crushing overabundance of concentrate, a federal antitrust lawsuit that Ocean Spray lawyers have called “enterprise threatening” looms over the company. As the industry gears up for another harvest this year, Massachusetts farmers who depend on…

Welcome to the 2016 Florida Python Challenge, a monthlong, state-sponsored hunt in which thousands of dollars in cash prizes are doled out to those who capture the most and the biggest Burmese pythons. More than 1,000 people have forked over the $25 entry fee for the privilege of stalking one of the largest and most…

On May 31—the day before Campanello began granting amnesty to addicts—tragedy struck. Another deadly overdose stunned Gloucester. This time, the victim was a 56-year-old man whose last-known address had been a shelter located just a few doors down from the police station. The next morning, Campanello sat in his office, watched over by a bumper sticker…

The world of competitive piping isn’t entirely new to me. Growing up, I had a few friends who started playing as tweens and earned college scholarships for it. I’ve seen guys roll out of cars after competition weekends with hangovers that would make Hemingway cringe. I’ve heard the tale of the piping priest who puked…

Grief is often depicted as a phase of gentle contemplation from which one emerges wiser and comforted. But for a few, grief can be a wellspring of destructive ambition. Still standing in the exam room, Pasceri pushed the barrel of the gun against the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger. In a final…

According to the FTC, Alex Guerrero faked being a doctor and claimed his products could cure cancer and concussions. These days, Guerrero’s business partner is the greatest quarterback of all time. [Full Article]

Dr. KJ Seung has chased one of history’s most prolific killers around the world, from Peru to Lesotho to North Korea. Can he stop the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis? [Full Article]