An olive ridley sea turtle has laid eggs on a Southern California beach for the first time in recorded history, NOAA said. The nest was discovered near Seal Beach on September 16. Officials have fenced off the area and will monitor the eggs for 45 to 60 days while urging beachgoers to maintain distance.

A sixth-grader from Ann Arbor, Michigan, has developed a low-cost firefighting drone designed to help tackle one of the most dangerous challenges faced by firefighters: reaching and suppressing fires without putting people directly in harm’s way. Sanat Pandit, a student at Greenhills School, built a $300 unmanned aerial vehicle that uses thermal imaging, sonar and path-planning technology to locate and target hot spots.

A team at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has spent eight weeks 3D-printing a massive steel mold that stands 6 feet tall, measures 4 feet wide and weighs nearly 2 tons. The tool, developed with Boeing, is designed for manufacturing thermoplastic composite aircraft components and will contribute to NASA’s Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing (HiCAM) project.