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The world’s first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage is being commercialized [update]

by Michelle Lewis 28/5/22 electrek

Italian startup Energy Dome has now begun to commercialize the world’s first CO2 Battery, which was launched earlier this month in Sardinia, Italy. The battery uses carbon dioxide to store renewable energy on the grid, and Energy Dome says the technology can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world.

Researchers say flu shot connected to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease

by Walter Einenkel 2/6/22 DAILY KOS

One of the many tragic turns the politicization of COVID-19 and our country’s response to it has been the deleterious effect it has had on public health consensus. With the rise in privatization, greed, and a withering government response over the decades, the public’s trust in medicine and science as entities above politics and money has dwindled. The novel coronavirus pandemic, as it did with everything else, expedited the trend of deteriorating public trust.

The Martha's Vineyard migrant flight has echoes of a dark past: Reverse Freedom Rides

by Gabrielle Emanuel 20/9/22 npr

In the summer of 1962, after three days on a Greyhound bus, Lela Mae Williams was just an hour from her destination—Hyannis, Mass. She went to the front of the bus and asked the bus driver to pull over. She needed to change into her finest clothes. She had been promised the Kennedy family would be waiting for her.

Trussonomics is a fanatical, fantastical creed, and the last thing Britain needs

by George Monbiot 3/11/22 The Guardian

This doctrine insists that politics submits to “the market”, which means, when translated, that democracy must submit to the power of money. Any impediment to the accumulation of wealth – such as public ownership, tax, regulation, trade unions and political protest – should be torn down, either quickly and noisily or slowly and stealthily. When consumer choice is unencumbered by political interference, the market is allowed to become a Great Winnower, sifting us into a natural hierarchy of winners and losers.

Fossil fuel burning once caused a mass extinction – now we’re risking another

by George Monbiot 3/11/22 The Guardian

Budleigh Salterton, on the south coast of Devon, sits above the most frightening cliffs on Earth. They are not particularly high. Though you don’t want to stand beneath them, they are not especially prone to collapse. The horror takes another form. It is contained in the story they tell. For they capture the moment at which life on Earth almost came to an end.

‘Initially I thought it was a scam’: can collagen really turn back the clock?

by David Cox 6/11/22 The Guardian

Most collagen proteins consist of long, spindly, flimsy-looking structures called fibrils, which provide it with the strength needed to anchor cells to one another and glue our bones, cartilage and tendons together and yet the flexibility to still allow for movement and agility.

Embrace what may be the most important green technology ever. It could save us all

by George Monbiot 24/11/22 The Guardian

Precision fermentation is a refined form of brewing, a means of multiplying microbes to create specific products. It has been used for many years to produce drugs and food additives. But now, in several labs and a few factories, scientists are developing what could be a new generation of staple foods.

State of Black America

by National Urban League

In the 48th edition of the report, we’ve decided to reflect on a landmark piece of legislation that transformed everyday life in America and gave us a reason to create this report: the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Spear tips found in Idaho may be the oldest stone tools in America

by skralyx 27/12/22 DAILY KOS

The earliest coherent story of this kind that we know of has been taking shape over the last couple of decades or so at a site in western Idaho called Nipéhe (Cooper's Ferry), and it’s finally been solidified by more-convincing dating.  We learn from this dating that a group of migrants arrived about 16,000 years ago, prior to the opening of any ice-free corridor.  They must have come down the coast, on the water for at least some of the trip, around the glaciers, then taken a left turn at the Columbia River, and come inland. 

Beavers are moving into the warming Arctic. It could be a threat like 'wildfire.'=

by Sharon Levy 10/12/22 USA TODAY

Researchers have observed that the dams beavers build accelerate changes already in play due to a warming climate. Indigenous people are worried the dams could pose a threat to the migrations of fish species they depend on.

US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough, source says

by Ella Nilsen and Rene Marsh 13/12/22 CNN

CNN
— 

For the first time ever, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN

Native villages fleeing climate change effects get millions in aid from Biden administration

by Trevor Hughes 30/11/22 USA TODAY

President Joe Biden announced the funding Wednesday for Newtok and Napakiak, both on the Bering Sea coast in Alaska, and the Quinault Indian Nation on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Biden spoke at the start of a two-day tribal summit in Washington, D.C.

Why Texas Republicans still oppose Medicaid expansion

by Kim Krisberg and David Leffler 7/11/22 THE TEXAS TRIBUNE

Eighteen percent of Texans don’t have health insurance — the highest rate in the nation — and Johnson had already filed five pieces of legislation that session to use Medicaid expansion to get as many as 1.2 million of those people insured.

Big oil is behind conspiracy to deceive public, first climate racketeering lawsuit says

by Nina Lakhani 20/12/22 The Guardian

“Puerto Rico is one of the most affected places by climate change in the world. It is so precariously positioned – they get hit on all fronts with hurricanes, storm surge, heat, coral bleaching – it’s the perfect place for this climate litigation,” said Melissa Sims, senior counsel for the plaintiffs’ law firm Milberg.

Welcome To the Anthropocene - The Age Of Human Die-offs

by thomhartmann 27/7/22 DAILY KOS

The world today is on the verge of a major food emergency, provoked in part by Russia’s attack on Ukraine but more broadly by the damage heat from global warming is doing to crops worldwide. This is both a crisis and an opportunity.

Political prisoners share how Jimmy Carter saved their lives

by Associated Press 2/5/23 DAILY KOS

Jimmy Carter tried like no president ever had to put human rights at the center of American foreign policy. It was a turnabout dictators and dissidents alike found hard to believe as he took office in 1977. The U.S. had such a long history of supporting crackdowns on popular movements — was his insistence on restoring moral principles for real?

The Biggest Political Con of the Last Century Unmasked: But Why??????

by thomhartmann 21/3/25 DAILY KOS

“If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.”

The Joe Rogan of the Left

by Mark Sumner 30/5/25 DAILY KOS

Late-stage capitalism is a wealth-concentration engine, focused on vacuuming up every dollar and putting it in as few hands as possible. Republicans are helping that vacuum suck.

California gardeners plant native species in parks to prevent wildfire spread – in pictures

by Philip Cheung 26/5/25 The Guardian

Kerrigan, 28, landscape designer, and Sam Richman, 31, film-maker and landscape designer, pull out invasive grass and black mustard during a volunteer day to maintain the Elysian Test Plot in Elysian Park

Canadian wildfires are record-breaking – and will threaten North American air quality for days

by Katharine Viner 30/5/25 The Guardian More than 17,000 people are in the process of being airlifted out of wildfire zones by the Canadian military, some of which now have no safe overland roads connecting them to the rest of the country. Wab Kinew, the Manitoba premier, declared a province-wide state of emergency on Wednesday, and Saskatchewan’s premier, Scott Moe, declared the same on Thursday.

A traceable global warming record and clarity for the 1.5 °C and well-below-2 °C goals

by Gottfried Kirchengast 2/6/25 Communication earth & environment

Global surface air temperature change versus preindustrial level is a primary metric of global warming. Its 20-year mean serves as the indicator of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to monitor threshold crossings like of the 1.5 °C target of the Paris Agreement. 

It was an accident’: the scientists who have turned humid air into renewable power

by Ned Carter Miles 2/7/23 The Guardian

In the early 20th century, Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla dreamed of pulling limitless free electricity from the air around us. Ever ambitious, Tesla was thinking on a vast scale, effectively looking at the Earth and upper atmosphere as two ends of an enormous battery. Needless to say, his dreams were never realised, but the promise of air-derived electricity – hygroelectricity – is now capturing researchers’ imaginations again. The difference: they’re not thinking big, but very, very small.

Three ways to make dental care kinder for anxious patients

by Isabel Olegario 4/6/25 THE CONVERSATION

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many dental clinics sought out non-aerosol-generating procedures (those that don’t spray water or create mist), to reduce viral transmission. SDF and ART became essential treatment approaches during that period – and their popularity has continued to grow. These techniques don’t just make dentistry more acceptable – they challenge the traditional belief that every cavity needs to be drilled and filled.

Why climate is an everyday story – but media coverage still spikes around special environment days and UN summits

[Climate change is already happening. But 36% of the world’s population still disputes the realities of its origins and impacts. When the science is clear but public understanding lags, more lives and livelihoods are put at risk.

Land-based sensors reveal high frequency of coastal flooding

by Miyuki Hino 2/6/25 Communications earth & environment

Rising sea levels threaten to inundate coastal communities globally, with 190-340 M people at risk of inundation by the end of the century1. Long before communities are permanently inundated, they begin to experience chronic flooding. With higher average sea levels, tides alone cause sunny-day flooding2,3. Tides also now impair stormwater drainage systems such that ordinary rain storms lead to flooding4,5. While rates of sea-level rise and its potential impacts have been well documented, data on the frequency of such floods occurring outside of extreme storms are scarce. Instead, estimates of coastal flood frequency based on tide gauge and elevation data are widely used: once water levels as measured at the tide gauge exceed a certain elevation threshold, flooding on land is inferred. 

Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets

by Chris R.Strokes 20/5/25 Communications earth & environment

Global mean sea level (GMSL) increased by around 20 cm from 1901 to 2018, with the rate of change accelerating from ~1.4 mm year−1 (1901–1990) to ~3.7 mm year−1 (2006–2018)1 and, most recently, to 4.5 mm year−1 (2023)2. Several processes contribute to sea-level rise (SLR), but melting of glaciers and ice sheets is the dominant source, adding ~1.6 mm year−1 from 2006 to 2018, and now exceeding thermal expansion of the oceans (~1.4 mm year−1)1. Smaller mountain glaciers and ice caps dominated the cryosphere’s contribution to GMSL rise during the 20th Century1,3,4,5 and they will continue to shrink rapidly1,6, with profound impacts on water resources and human activities. 

Children die as USAID aid cuts snap a lifeline for the world’s most malnourished

by Taiwo Adebayo 15/5/25 AP

For years, the United States Agency for International Development had been the backbone of the humanitarian response in northeastern Nigeria, helping non-government organizations provide food, shelter and healthcare to millions of people. But this year, the Trump administration cut more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world.

The Tennessee representative Rusty Grills says the lobbyist proposed a simple idea: repeal the state’s requirement for reflective roofs on many commercial buildings.

by Sam Jones 5/6/25 The Guardian

The map of Paco Roca’s mind, a landscape of memory and loss, unfolds across the walls of an exhibition hall in Madrid, inviting visitors to acquaint themselves with the bittersweet geographies that have shaped the work of one of Spain’s best-known graphic

How the little-known ‘dark roof’ lobby may be making US cities hotter

by Ames Alexander 1/6/25 The Guardian

The Tennessee representative Rusty Grills says the lobbyist proposed a simple idea: repeal the state’s requirement for reflective roofs on many commercial buildings.

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects

by Tess McClure 3/6/25 The Guardian

Daniel Janzen only began watching the insects – truly watching them – when his ribcage was shattered. Nearly half a century ago, the young ecologist had been out documenting fruit crops in a dense stretch of Costa Rican forest when he fell in a ravine, landing on his back. The long lens of his camera punched up through three ribs, snapping the bones into his thorax.

Children need the freedom to play on driveways and streets again – here’s how to make it happen

by Debbie Watson 4/6/25 THE CONVERSATION

In many cases, children don’t have easy access to purpose-built spaces like playgrounds. They need adults to get them there. Without the use of more informal spaces to spend time with other children, this means they often lack daily opportunities for play.

Dry mouth, bad breath and tooth damage: the effects Ozempic and Wegovy can have on your mouth

by Adam Taylor 4/6/25 THE CONVERSATION

Ozempic and Wegovy have been hailed as wonder drugs when it comes to weight loss. But as the drug has become more widely used, a number of unintended side-effects have become apparent – with the weight loss drug affecting the appearance of everything from your butt to your feet.

Trump Wants to Cut Tribal College Funding by Nearly 90%, Putting Them at Risk of Closing

by Matt Krupnick 3/6/25 PROPUBLICA

The Trump administration has proposed cutting funding for tribal colleges and universities by nearly 90%, a move that would likely shut down most or all of the institutions created to serve students disadvantaged by the nation’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous communities.

Scenic forest trails near Santa Cruz to open to the public for the first time

by Joe Rosato 4/6/25 NBC BAY AREA

Over the last three years, a mix of professional and volunteer labor has worked to carve a network of nine miles of trail through dense woods and steep slopes. When the project opens this summer, it will include nine miles of trails, with nine more to come.

Trump EPA rollbacks would weaken rules projected to save billions of dollars and thousands of lives

by Seth Borenstein 6/6/25 AP

When the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a wide-ranging rollback of environmental regulations, he said it would put a “dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” and introduce a “Golden Age” for the American economy.

Why reforming California’s bedrock environmental law is good for the environment

by Nick Yost and Daniel Yost 5/6/25 CALL MATTERS

CEQA, as it’s colloquially known, embodies the proposition that you should “look before you leap” on issues that could have negative environmental or public health impacts. The law’s core legal principle holds that decisionmakers should know the environmental consequences of their actions before taking them.

In California’s largest landback deal, the Yurok Tribe reclaims sacred land around Klamath River

by Anita Hofschneider 5/6/25 Grist

More than 17,000 acres around the Klamath River in Northern California, including the lower Blue Creek watershed, have returned to the Yurok Tribe, completing the largest landback deal in California history.

Regen agriculture outperforms conventional farming across key metrics

[https://8point9.com/regen-agriculture-can-outperform-conventional-farming-across-key-metrics/ by 8point9 6/6/25 8point9

The European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture has released the results of new study which reveals that regenerative farming systems across Europe are not only environmentally superior but bring higher returns for farmers and are more resilient than conventional models.

Food additive titanium dioxide likely has more toxic effects than thought, study finds===== by Tom Perkins 6/7/25 The Guardian

Ultra-processed foods more broadly have this effect on “food hormones”, but there isn’t a full understanding of why, and the new research may help point to an answer.

Despite Trump-Musk Feud, CO2 Milestone Is the 'Important News of the Day'

by Olivia Rosane 6/6/25 Common dreams

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked above 430 parts per million in 2025—the highest it has been in millions of years—according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego on Thursday.

Most freshwater game fish in Southern California carry invasive parasites capable of infecting humans, study finds

by University of California 3/6/25 PHYS ORG

"Americans don't usually think about parasites when they eat freshwater fish because it hasn't historically been an issue here," said Ryan Hechinger, an ecologist and parasitologist at Scripps and the study's senior author. "But these trematodes have now been widely introduced in the U.S. and that means that doctors and the public should be aware."

Wake Up and Smell the Corruption

by Paul Krugman 6/6/25 Paul Krugman

So, I have a fully written piece ready to post about the destruction of U.S. science. But who would read it today? It will hold, while I talk about Trump and Musk.

Neo-Nazi group ‘actively seeking to grow in US’ with planned paramilitary training event

by Ben Makuch 7/6/25 The Guardian

An international neo-Nazi terrorist organization is boldly continuing to build in the US and planning a new paramilitary training event without fear of local authorities or the FBI, which once dismantled it in a nationwide effort.

Once Hard Core MAGA, He Now Sees Trump as a Wannabe Dictator

by Paul Glickman 15/6/25 DAILY KOS

Danny Collins’ family lived “pretty much in poverty” during his childhood in Fort Pierce, Florida in the ‘80s and ‘90s. When he was 9, he discovered that the woman he thought was his biological mother was in fact his stepmother. It turned out that his biological mom left when he

Neo-Nazi group the Base found a safe space to recruit Americans: the Russian internet

by Ben Makuch 28/10/24 The Guardian

Two masked men are in frame, wearing camouflage and sitting opposite each other. A table is between them and they are in the middle of what they claim is an American forest.

The river that came back to life: a journey down the reborn Klamath

by Gabrielle Cannon 7/6/25 The Guardian

Last year, the final of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River were removed in the largest project of its kind in US history. Forged through the footprint of reservoirs that kept parts of the Klamath submerged for more than a century, the river that straddles the California-Oregon border has since been reborn.

by Anne C.Mulkern 6/5/25 Climatewire

Forests have been seen as one of the most effective places to counter climate change by absorbing carbon emissions. But that’s changed, says a May paper from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), an academic arm of the international U.N.

The Cause of Alzheimer's Might Be Coming From Within Your Mouth

by Peter Dockrill 6/6/25 Science alert

In recent years, an increasing number of scientific investigations have backed an alarming hypothesis: Alzheimer's disease may not be merely a condition of an aging brain, but the product of infection.

I was enjoying a midnight swim. Then my girlfriend kissed me – and the nightmare began===== by Paula Cocozza 8/6/25 The Guardian

On a cold winter’s night, in a “fit of spontaneity”, Nathan Dunne and his girlfriend went for a midnight swim on Hampstead Heath in London. They had been living together for a few months and, although it was dark and chilly, they “had a summer feeling in that first flush of the relationship”, Dunne says. They shed their clothes and waded into the shallows. After diving into the icy water, Dunne’s girlfriend put her lips to his cheek, and as they pulled apart, his life changed beyond all recognition. “It was like being struck. Like something came down,” he says, slicing the air with his hand. “The flip of a switch.”

Scientists find DNA proof of swine feces in North Carolina homes

by Daily Yonder 7/6/25 NC Health News

In Duplin County, North Carolina, there is a pollutant that hangs in the air, the water and the soil. It tumbles in the breeze and into homes through open windows, settling as a thin film of dust on their kitchen tables. It gloops together in masses of sludge in the surface water that feeds their creeks and streams. The fresh, nostalgic smell of seawater along the county coast has dissipated, replaced by a permanent foul smell from nearby swine factory farms, similar to that of a decomposing body, residents say. Policymakers have long ignored their complaints but new research from Johns Hopkins University publishing soon could finally show scientific evidence of pollution that officials can’t ignore.

American doctors are moving to Canada to escape the Trump administration

by Brett Kelman for KFF Health News 9/6/25 DAILY KOS

Earlier this year, as President Donald Trump was beginning to reshape the American government, Michael, an emergency room doctor who was born, raised, and trained in the United States, packed up his family and got out.

There is a lake in Tanzania that looks like it’s from another planet: it kills everything it touches, except these animals

by Joe Brenna 18/6/25 as

On the border of Kenya and Tanzania lies Lake Natron—a body of water 58 square miles wide but only about 9 feet deep. It might sound like the perfect spot for a family outing.

New Climate Study Highlights Dire Sea Level Warnings

by ob erwyn 13/5/25 Inside Climate News

A new set of detailed clues gleaned from ancient fossil reefs on the Seychelle Islands shows an increasing likelihood that human-caused warming will raise the global average sea level at least 3 feet by 2100, at the high end of the projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

Scientists have studied remote work for 4 years and have reached a clear conclusion: working from home makes us happier

by Egna Perez 13/6/25 CMU

Scientists have spent four years diving deep into the world of remote work and stumbled upon a powerful truth: working from home genuinely makes us happier. As millions shifted to teleworking amid the pandemic, what began as a forced experiment slowly revealed life-changing benefits far beyond what anyone expected.

New study debunks longstanding myth about impacts of vegan diet on your body: 'It was certainly ingrained in my mind'

by Brianne Nemiroff 12/6/25 TCD

It's a common myth that those who eat a vegan diet cannot put on muscle.

The reason this theory became perpetuated is because many studies showed that animal-based proteins created better muscle protein synthesis than plant-based proteins.

Deadly fungus that can "eat you from the inside out" is quickly spreading around the world

by Eric Ralls 15/6/25 Earth.com

Most molds and fungi are helpful, but some fungus and mold will jump from hospital wards to honeybee hives, and the line between helpful recycler and harmful invader grows blurrier each year.

Overwhelmed by company? Five introvert-friendly ways to hang out

by Jenny Valentish 28/5/25 The Guardian

It can be challenging to leave the house when you’re all out of eye contact, but a low social battery doesn’t have to mean a life short on socialising
This article is more than 1 year old

Revealed: how a little-known pollution rule keeps the air dirty for millions of Americans===== by Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin and Emily Zentner 16/10/23 The Guardian

Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events – including wildfires – on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from the California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.

Conservatives aim to restructure U.S. government and replace it with Trump’s vision

by Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press 29/8/23 PBS News

WASHINGTON (AP) — With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own.

Saguaro cacti collapsing in Arizona extreme heat, scientist says

by Liliana Salgado 25/7/23 Reuters

Summer monsoon rains the cacti rely on have failed to arrive, testing the desert giants' ability to survive in the wild as well as in cities after temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) for 25 days in Phoenix, said Tania Hernandez.

How urban planning solutions and architecture help cool down cities

by Mauro Mereu 23/8/23 IO

Thank you for sharing this story! However, please do so in a way that respects the copyright of this text. If you want to share or reproduce this full text, please ask permission from Innovation Origins ([email protected]) or become a partner of ours! You are of course free to quote this story with source citation. Would you like to share this article in another way? Then use this link to the article: https://innovationorigins.com/en/how-urban-planning-solutions-and-architecture-help-cool-down-cities/

While a tool like a digital twin indeed represents an informed way to look at what parts of a city suffer the most from heat, the actual planning strategies are those making a difference in relieving a city from hot temperatures. Several good urban planning practices can be found in Europe. From ventilation corridors to groundbreaking architecture, these examples prove to be good ways of keeping downtowns cool.

Dr James Hansen Warns Climate is Heating up way faster than IPCC forecasts & he has the receipts

by FishOutofWater 28/10/23 DAILY KOS

Recent observations support Hansen’s warning that the earth is heating up at a rate well above IPPC forecasts. Hansen hypothesized for the past decade that IPCC models underestimated the sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gases because they underestimated the cooling effects of pollution. In particular, sulfurous gasses produced by burning fossil fuels act as a powerful reflector when they interact with water. Atmospheric sulfur pollution bonds with water to form tiny droplets, smaller and more reflective than normal cloud droplets.  These clouds are powerful at cooling the climate.

“It’s Project 2025, Stupid"

by Mikey Weinstein 10/4/24 DAILY KOS

Most voters are completely unaware of an impossibly wretched set of policy proposals developed by a slew of ignoble right-wing entities but spearheaded by the ultra-conservative, MAGA-worshipping Heritage Foundation. Ready? It’s called “Project 2025.” Its official name is “The Presidential Transition Project.”

Researchers make stunning discovery after examining farmland treated only with organic fertilizers for decades: '[Will] help us to move forward'

by Juliana Marino 13/10/24 TCD

Researchers at Kansas State University have been studying how different farming practices impact the amount of carbon stored in the soil. After comparing their results, the researchers concluded that soil treated with manure or compost fertilizer stores more carbon than soil treated with chemical fertilizers or no fertilizer.

Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans, studies find

by Jasmine Garsd 8/3/24 npr

The murder of Laken Riley took center stage during Thursday night's State of the Union address. Riley was a 22-year-old student who was killed last month at the University of Georgia. The suspect in her murder is a Venezuelan migrant whom officials say was illegally in the U.S.

Fremont Start-Up Promises Revolutionary 'Forever' Battery

by CBS San Francisco News Partner 26/7/23 Patch

Heinemann loves to bike and go long distances. Some might say the avid cyclist is his own source of renewable energy.

Slow solutions to fast-moving ecological crises won’t work – changing basic human behaviours must come first

by Mike Joy, Phoebe Barnard 18/10/23 The Conversation

As the world grapples with multiple ecological crises, it’s clear the various responses over the past half century have largely failed. Our new research argues the priority now should be addressing the real driver of these crises – our own maladaptive behaviours.

Many voters say Congress is broken. Could proportional representation fix it?

by Hansi Lo Wang 18/11/23 npr

With an increasingly polarized Congress and fewer competitive elections, there are growing calls among some election reformers to change how voters elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here is how we know that vaccines do not cause autism

by Matthew Herper 3/2/25 STAT

Vaccines do not cause autism. You’ve almost certainly read that before — probably hundreds of times. But many people do not believe it, perhaps because too often it is repeated without a real explanation of how we know that.

The Mekong is slowly dying.

by Laura Bicker November 2023 BBC

Mai takes a deep breath before disappearing below the muddy brown waters of the biggest freshwater lake in South East Asia. A few bubbles rise to the surface - the only sign that he is underwater, freeing his fishing net, which he had left hanging between trees in a flooded forest.

Income-based U.S. household carbon footprints (1990–2019) offer new insights on emissions inequality and climate finance

by Jared Starr, Craig Nicolson, Michael M. Markowitz, Daniel Moran 17/8/23 ScienceOpen.com

Current policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase adaptation and mitigation funding are insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. It is clear that further action is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and achieve a just climate future. Here, we offer a new perspective on emissions responsibility and climate finance by conducting an environmentally extended input output analysis that links 30 years (1990–2019) of United States (U.S.) household-level income data to the emissions generated in creating that income. To do this we draw on over 2.8 billion inter-sectoral transfers from the Eora MRIO database to calculate both supplier- and producer-based GHG emissions intensities and connect these with detailed income and demographic data for over 5 million U.S. individuals in the IPUMS Current Population Survey. 

Surprising Link Between Menthol And Alzheimer's Discovered in Mice

by David Nield 30/1/25 Science alert

A study found something strange in 2023: When mice with Alzheimer's disease inhale menthol, their cognitive abilities improve.

It seems the chemical compound can stop some of the damage done to the brain that's usually associated with the disease.

Ancient Celtic tribe had women at its social center

by Ari Daniel 15/1/25 npr

In Britain, during the Neolithic Period (characterized by the introduction of agriculture) and the Bronze Age, which dated from about 4000 to 800 BCE, prehistoric human societies tended to be patrilocal. That's "where women move," says Cassidy. "They leave their home upon marriage, and they go join the village, the community of their husbands."

Bill Gates made waves with his statements on climate change. Here’s why he’s right–and what most people missed

by Gabriel Labbate 16/11/23 FORTUNE

When Bill Gates speaks, people listen. His contributions to tackling global problems have been nothing short of extraordinary, from funding cutting-edge vaccine development to supporting an array of groundbreaking initiatives on climate change. At New York Climate Week in September, his perspectives on climate change did not go unnoticed–and even made waves.

Perfect solar system' found in search for alien life

by Pallab Ghosh 29/11/23 BBC

Researchers have located "the perfect solar system", forged without the violent collisions that made our own a hotchpotch of different-sized planets.

Buoyancy-driven hybrid energy platform moves to full-scale pilot

by Loz Blain 8/10/24 NEW ATLAS

Swedish company NoviOcean has tested a third-gen prototype of its combination wind/solar/wave energy platform, a floating platform rated for up to 1 megawatt of consistent clean energy around the clock thanks to a fascinating buoyancy-driven mechanism. Next step: a full-scale pilot.

While U.S. church attendance has dropped, prosperity gospel has risen—with a brutal take on poverty===== by Charles Jay 28/9/23 DAILY KOS

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem, accusing them of turning it into “a den of robbers.” And he made his views about the rich and poor very clear in numerous passages

The bacteria that can capture carbon

by Isabelle Gerretsen 29/8/23 BBC

Scientists have recently discovered a microbe, a type of cyanobacteria, off the coast of a volcanic island near Sicily that eats carbon dioxide (CO2) "astonishingly quickly".

New maps show where snowfall is disappearing

by Eric Zerkel 25/11/23 CNN

Climate scientists say the future of snowfall is pretty clear: A warmer world driven by human pollution means precipitation is more likely to fall as rain than snow, all else being equal. 

We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come

by Oliver Milman 19/7/23 The Guardian

The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.

The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies

by James Temple 2/6/25 MIT Technology Review

The Trump administration has terminated National Science Foundation grants for more than 100 research projects related to climate change amid a widening campaign to slash federal funding for scientists and institutions studying the rising risks of a warming world.

Glaciers will keep melting for centuries even if warming stops, study warns

by Stuti Mishra 3/6/25 INDEPENDENT

About 40 per cent of the world's glacier mass is already set to disappear due to past greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing loss not only contributes to sea-level rise but also threatens freshwater supplies and increases the risk of natural hazards in mountainous regions.

The internet is in decline – it needs rewilding

by John Naughton 4/5/24 The Guardian

Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, had come up with the idea for a “world wide web” as a way of locating and accessing documents that were scattered all over the internet. With a small group of colleagues he envisaged, designed and implemented it in the late 1980s and eventually put the whole thing – protocols, server and browser software, HTML specification, etc. – on one of Cern’s internet servers, and in doing so changed the world.

Can multivitamins improve memory? A new study shows 'intriguing' results

by Allison Aubrey 26/5/23 NPR

A team of researchers wanted to assess how a daily multivitamin may influence cognitive aging and memory. They tracked about 3,500 older adults who were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial. One group of participants took a placebo, and another group took a Silver Centrum multivitamin, for three years. The participants also took tests, administered online, to evaluate memory.

‘It was an accident’: the scientists who have turned humid air into renewable power

by Ned Carter Miles 2/7/23

In the early 20th century, Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla dreamed of pulling limitless free electricity from the air around us. Ever ambitious, Tesla was thinking on a vast scale, effectively looking at the Earth and upper atmosphere as two ends of an enormous battery. Needless to say, his dreams were never realised, but the promise of air-derived electricity – hygroelectricity – is now capturing researchers’ imaginations again. The difference: they’re not thinking big, but very, very small.

The 'Game-Changing' Technology The Nuclear Industry Is Betting On For A Revival

by Alexander C.Kaufman 31/7/23 HUFFPOST

CAMDEN, N.J. ― On a bright, humid afternoon last September, Allen Hickman made the rounds on the floor of a factory that embodies the past, present and future of the nation’s atomic energy industry perhaps more than any other site in the United States.

Some ultra-processed foods are good for your health, WHO-backed study finds

by Denis Campbell 13/11/23

Some ultra-processed foods increase the risk of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes – but others are good for you, new research into the demonised foodstuffs suggests.

Mercury exposure linked to high youth suicides in Canada First Nation

by Leyland Gecco 20/7/23 The Guardian

Researchers who studied three generations of mothers and their children from the community of Grassy Narrows, Ontario, have concluded that sustained exposure to the toxic metal helped cause a suicide rate three times higher than any other First Nations community – which are already far higher than among the country’s general population.

Could kinder, gentler fracking create a breakthrough in geothermal power?

by Mark Sumner 23/7/23 DAILY KOS

Hydro power is often mentioned, but only in the sense that while it plays a significant role in the current energy portfolio, there are few options for expansion. While wind and solar have been racing up, hydroelectric production has declined.

The Mekong is slowly dying

by Laura Bicker 11/01/23

A warming world and hydropower dams are destroying one of the world’s richest ecosystems - and threatening the millions of people who rely on it.

The circus that bought a tiny California town: ‘We’re creating our own Disneyland’

by Amanda Ulrich 11/24/24 The Guardian

rom 10 miles out, the tiny town of Nipton suddenly appears in the middle distance like a mirage: a huddle of lush eucalyptus trees in an otherwise impossibly vast, barren expanse of the California desert.

How to harvest water from clouds of fog

by Kat Lonsdorf Claire Harbage 10/06/23 NPR

This September morning, the air is cool. Murungi's wearing a wool hat and a maroon fleece, long pants and tall rubber boots. But the sun — strong at the equator — will soon warm the area. When the ground heats up during the day, its moisture evaporates into the air. Then when the night brings cooler temperatures, that moisture condenses, forming a fog of water droplets that Murungi and his wife collect.

Three independent studies say that blood platelet factor PF4 prevents and reverses cognitive decline

by skralyx 8/18/23 DailyKos

Although the percentage of older people with dementia is thankfully decreasing, from 13% to 10% in those over 70 from 2011-2019, the absolute number of people with dementia is actually increasing.  That’s because the share of the U.S. population that is 65 and over ballooned by 38.6% from 2010-2020, in large part due to baby boomers (shown in dark blue below) crossing the 65-year mark.  They’ll keep on doing that until 2031, so the 65+ population will continue to grow quickly until then.  

It’s absolutely guaranteed’: the best and worst case scenarios for sea level rise

by Karen McVeigh 6/26/23 the Guardian

It is accelerating, too: the ocean rose more than twice as fast (4.62mm a year) in the most recent decade (2013-22) than it did in 1993-2002, the first decade of satellite measurements, when the rate was 2.77mm a year. Last year was a new high, according to the World Meteorological Organization. It is no coincidence that the past eight years were the warmest on record. 

What Happens When You Tax Billionaires at 90 Percent?

by Thomhartmann 3/6/23 Daily KOS

“Succession” is over, but spoiled, entitled billionaire man-children are still very much with us, running social media companies, owning newspapers and television networks, and funding politicians and judges who then keep their taxes low and regulations minimal.

How the far right tore apart one of the best tools to fight voter fraud

by Miles Parks 6/6/23 NPR

On a night in January 2022, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin stepped on stage in a former airbase in Houma, La.

With American flags draped from the stage, the topic of the night was democracy.

Defense arguments are set to open in a landmark climate case brought by Montana youth

by Ellis Juhlin 19/6/23 nrp

Sixteen young Montana plaintiffs are suing state leaders in Helena, saying they've ignored scientific evidence and continue to promote fossil fuels, worsening climate change. They say that violates their right to a "clean and healthful environment," which Montana's constitution guarantees.

A Major Polling Company Is Throwing Its Weight Behind Huge Conspiracy Theories

by Matt Shuham 14/7/23 HUFFPOST

Kari Lake had lost Arizona’s 2022 governor’s race by thousands of votes, falsely declared that she’d been robbed, and was trying to overturn the election results in court when, finally, she was declared the winner of the race in March.

A beautiful, broken America: what I learned on a 2,800-mile bus ride from Detroit to LA

by Joanna Pocock 26/7/23 The Guardian

Historically, chroniclers of the road have travelled by car – intrepid individuals in charge of their destinies. They also tend to be male. The only book I could find by a woman about crossing the US was America Day by Day by Simone de Beauvoir. It is also the only Great American Road Trip book that features Greyhound bus travel. Simone became my companion on the road.

‘This way of farming is really sexy’: the rise of regenerative agriculture

by Alexandra Topping 14/8/23 The Guardian

Hollie Fallick looks over Brading on the Isle of Wight, at a patchwork of fields bordered by ancient oaks, which stretches to the Solent. “We still have to pinch ourselves every day,” says the 30-year-old, as she surveys the 50 hectares (125 acres) she farms with her best friend, Francesca Cooper, 34.

Five geoengineering trials the UK is funding to combat global warming

by Robert Chris 3/6/25 The Conversation

The UK government recently announced plans to fund five small-scale trials related to geoengineering. It’s the first time a state research funding body has put serious money into what’s known as solar radiation management, or SRM, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting more of the Sun’s energy back into space.

Profound Paradigm Shift in Cellular Biology – DNA Damage Repaired by Antioxidant Enzymes

by CENTER FOR GENOMIC REGULATION 6/7/23 sciTechDaily

The human nucleus is metabolically active, according to the findings of a new study in Molecular Systems Biology by researchers at the CRG in Barcelona and CeMM/Medical University of Vienna.

A popular, but noxious, piping fix is sickening people. And it's throughout America's sewers.

by Emily Le Coz & Monique O.Madan 30/3/23 USA TODAY

A strong, epoxy-like odor that nauseated her and dozens of classmates and teachers at Spooner Middle School in Wisconsin. By the time they evacuated, Kaylie was feeling lightheaded. She passed out and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

How to improve US cities and tackle the climate crisis? Get rid of parking spaces

by Danielle Renwick 26/5/23 The Guardian

What could New York achieve if it repurposed some of its 3m curbside parking spots?

It could get rid of rats by moving trash off the sidewalks and into containers. It could create safe, cool play spaces for the more than 1m New Yorkers without easy park access. It could build bioswales to collect rainwater and prevent flooding during heavy storms.

Calculating the amount companies owe for causing global warming

by Bob Yirka 23/5/23 PHYS ORG

Prior research has found that it is possible to tie certain environmental events to climate change—the current heat wave in parts of South Asia, for example, or excessive flooding in Myanmar and Bangladesh. As it stands now, governments wind up paying to restore order in such areas, or in some cases, insurance companies pay for those who have coverage.

Earth Matters: James Hansen warned us about climate change 35 years ago this month

by Staff Emeritus 1/6/23 DAILY KOS

“The present observed global warming is close to 0.4 degrees C [0.72 F], relative to ‘climatology,’ which is defined as the thirty-year (1951–1980) mean. A warming of 0.4 degrees C is three times larger than the standard deviation of annual mean temperatures in the 30-year climatology. The standard deviation of 0.13 degrees C i[0.23 F] is a typical amount by which the global temperature fluctuates annually about its 30-year mean; the probability of a chance warming of three standard deviations is about 1 percent. Thus, we can state with about 99 percent confidence that current temperatures represent a real warming trend rather than a chance fluctuation over the 30-year period.”—James Hansen testifying to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 23, 1988.

Experience exceeds awareness of anthropogenic climate change in Greenland

by Kelton Minor, Manumina Lund Jensen, David Dreyer Lassen & Minik T.Rosing 26/6/23 Nature Climate Change

Although Greenland is a hub for climate science, the climate perceptions of Greenland’s predominantly Indigenous population have remained largely unstudied. Here we present two nationally representative surveys and show that Greenlanders are more likely than residents of top oil-producing Arctic countries to perceive that climate change is happening and about twice as likely to have personally experienced its effects. However, half are unaware that climate change is human-caused and those who are most affected appear to be least aware.

Hygroelectricity -- Nikola Tesla's Dream Reimagined?

by Irontortoise 6/7/23 DAILY KOS

In May, a team at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst published a paper declaring they had successfully generated a small but continuous electric current from humidity in the air…

‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis

by Oliver Milman 5/7/23 The Guardian

More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.

Understanding the role of the sun in climate change

by Nicola Scafetta 6/7/23 PHYS ORG

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports the latter view and estimates that almost 100% of the observed warming of the Earth's surface from 1850–1900 to 2020 was caused by man-made emissions. This is known as the anthropogenic global warming (AGWT) theory.

Should I worry about ticks?

by Joel Snape 16/7/23 The Guardian

As arachnid superorders go, ticks are pretty evolutionarily successful. They’ve been around for at least 100 million years in one variety or another, with their main party trick – hanging around until they can latch a host to feed on – working on thousands of different animals across almost endless environments. But how concerned should you be about them in the UK? You won’t miss the blood they take, but they can cause a variety of unpleasant conditions in their hosts – and there’s some evidence that their population is growing.

As darkness descends on Gaza, I yearn for the world to see us, too

by Omar Ghraeib 12/10/23 CNN

In Gaza, we have all been glued to the news for the last five days, watching in disbelief as strikes and counterstrikes have been exchanged and the death counts on both sides of the border mount. While every round of violence starts differently, they all end the same way here: with Palestinians paying a heavy price. We live in perpetual anticipation of a tragic ending.

Racism at heart of US failure to tackle deadly heatwaves, expert warns

by Nina Lakhani 6/8/23 The Guardian

Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet.

The Bruen Decision Is Not an "Originalist" Interpretation of the 2nd Amendment

by Old Rotohead 31/8/23 DAILY KOS

Self-proclaimed “originalists” tend to use their alleged doctrine as a fig leaf for enacting their prejudices. In addition to the subject of reproductive autonomy, that’s especially in evidence, it seems, with regard to the Second Amendment.  The Supreme Court actually has a set of rules for legal interpretation which enshrines aversion of “originalism”: 

Biden creates a new national monument near the Grand Canyon

by Tamara Keith 8/8/23 nrp

President Biden designated a new national monument near the Grand Canyon on Tuesday. The move protects lands that are sacred to indigenous peoples and permanently bans new uranium mining claims in the area. It covers nearly 1 million acres.

Why Billionaires Fund Anti-Trans & Anti-Black-History Political Movements

by Thomnhartmann 16/8/23 DAILY KOS

 Almost 12 percent of Americans, over 37 million of us, live in dire poverty. According to OECD numbers, while only 5 percent of Italians and 11 percent of Japanese workers toil in low-wage jobs, almost a quarter of Americans — 23 percent — work for wages that can’t support a normal lifestyle. (And low-income Japanese and Italians have free healthcare and college.)

Phoenix Roasts in Record-Breaking 110-Plus-Degree Heat, with No End in Sight

by Daniel Cusick 17/7/23 E&E News

 Several million heat-tolerant Arizonans spent the weekend in air-conditioned semi-darkness, drawing their curtains shut as temperatures soared to nearly 120 degrees in one of America's largest metro areas.

Ready to cold plunge? We dive into the science to see if it's worth it

by Will Stone 20/11/23 nrp

Your body's first reaction to a plunge in chilly water is the "cold shock" response. Your heart rate jumps. Stress hormones spike. You gasp suddenly, and may hyperventilate.

The 19th century sexual purity law that some want to revive

by Mary Ziegler 3/10/23 CNN

There has been a surprising and consistent theme in several of Kacsymaryk’s rulings: the Comstock Act, a 19th-century sexual purity law that has lain dormant for more than a century. Last spring, when Kacsmaryk ruled that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) never had the authority to approve mifepristone, a pill used in the standard protocol for medication abortion, which now accounts for more than half of abortions performed in the United States, he argued that the Comstock Act made it a federal crime to mail abortion pills.

Climate Change Breeds War in Africa

by Alan Singer 30/7/23 Daily KOS

Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, warns European nations that refugees from Sahel region will be moving north to escape violence, climate crises like droughts and floods, and food shortages.

Giganto, largest ever primate, died out due to diet change, say scientists

by Nicola Davis 10/01/24 The Guardian

Previous studies have shown giganto’s range decreased considerably by about 330,000 years ago, but unpicking the cause of its extinction has been a challenge as it was unclear when exactly it was wiped out.

Despite backlash, Masha Gessen says comparing Gaza to a Nazi-era ghetto is necessary

by Rachel Treisman, Leila Fadel 22/12/23 nrp

Israel's air-and-ground assault on Gaza has killed more than 20,000 people in the 10 weeks since the Hamas-led attack on Israel killed some 1,200 people and took more than 240 others hostage.

First, Murdoch papers targeted me. Now there is evidence they falsely implicated me in a cover-up

by Gordon Brown 31/7/24 The Guardian

Lewis and Robert Winnett, who was appointed by Lewis as editor of the Washington Post before quickly deciding not to take the job, are accused of benefiting from private investigators who broke the law. As these allegations surface, an “alternative truth” is being briefed that the Lewis team represents a nimble “no-holds-barred” British journalism, in contrast to what is alleged to have been the plodding, loss-making reporting of newspapers such as the recent Washington Post. It is Lewis’s claim that he can turn round the fortunes of the publication, which lost $77m last year, that appears to have endeared him to the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who is the paper’s owner. But as recent revelations demonstrate, the real dividing line is not between the disrupter and an entrenched resistance to change, but between ethics and the lack of them.

US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network

by Jason Wilson 22/8/23 The Guardian

The founder and sponsor of a far-right network of secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges in the US is a former industrialist who has frequently speculated about his future as a warlord after the collapse of America, a Guardian investigation has found.

California shores up beaver protection in nod to their ‘ecological benefit’

by Guardian staff and agencies 26/7/23 The Guardian

California is embracing beavers and the role they play in the ecosystem after years of viewing the animals as a nuisance for chewing down trees and blocking up streams.

Microplastic-eating plankton may be worsening crisis in oceans, say scientists

by Karen McVeigh 9/11/23 The Guardian

A type of zooplankton found in marine and fresh water can ingest and break down microplastics, scientists have discovered. But rather than providing a solution to the threat plastics pose to aquatic life, the tiny creatures known as rotifers could be accelerating the risk by splitting the particles into thousands of smaller and potentially more dangerous nanoplastics.

Trump’s EPA aims to cut pollution rules projected to save nearly 200,000 lives: ‘People will be hurt’

by Oliver Milman and Dharna Noor 19/3/25 The Guardian

A push by Donald Trump’s administration to repeal a barrage of clean air and water regulations may deal a severe blow to US public health, with a Guardian analysis finding that the targeted rules were set to save the lives of nearly 200,000 people in the years ahead.

New maps show where snowfall is disappearing

by Eric Zerkel 25/11/23 CNN

Snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, a new analysis and maps from a NOAA climate scientist show.

Just add sugar: Research shows common antioxidant can be more beneficial through glycosylation

by Sydney Dahle 14/5/23 PHYS ORG

Polyphenols are a class of compounds found in many plant-based foods. Polyphenols help prevent cellular damage in the body and can help to prevent diseases such as cancer or heart disease. However, many of them do not dissolve in water, making it difficult to fully take advantage of their health benefits.

Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows

by Damian Garrington 20/7/23 The Guardian

Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.

The most famous extinction event in the planet’s history is happening again — in Santa Cruz

by Corinne Purtill 31/5/23 Los Angeles Times

The heat of impact generated massive fires that annihilated everything around them and sent colossal plumes of pollutants soaring into the atmosphere. Within a day or two, toxic clouds of pulverized rock, sulfate aerosols and wildfire soot had blanketed the planet, blocking all but a tiny fraction of the sun’s energy and bringing photosynthesis to a virtual halt for the only known time in history.

‘Wings’ on poles: Bill Gates-backed wind power tech promises 75% cheaper energy

by Jijo Malayil 30/5/25 Interesting Engineering

US-based firm Airloom Energy’s innovative renewable energy technology to maximize wind power’s potential has now gained significant backing from investors. The list also includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the innovation platform led by Microsoft founder Gates, and the state of Wyoming.

Trump funding cuts ripple through rural America

by P.J Huffstutter 29/03/25 Reuters

Trump's administration also rolled out cuts to other federal funding that has kept small agriculture businesses like Yates' Greenbrier Dairy churning.

‘Even a freeway is redeemable’: world’s largest wildlife crossing takes shape in Los Angeles

by Katharine Gammon 6/4/25 The Guardian

Above the whirring of 300,000 cars each day on Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, an ambitious project is taking shape. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing is the largest wildlife bridge in the world at 210ft long and 174ft wide, and this week it’s had help taking shape: soil.

The doomsday vaults storing seeds, data and DNA to protect our future

by Ella Braidwood 19/11/23 The Guardian

Built in 2000, this seed bank is one of as many as 1,700 worldwide, otherwise known as ‘“doomsday vaults”: facilities intended to safeguard humanity in the event of civilisation’s collapse. It isn’t just about seeds – researchers are preserving everything from DNA to data, and even faeces. Should it all go wrong, these Noah’s Arks could provide the blueprints for our recovery.

Kitepower displays the ‘miracle of airborne energy’

by Mauro Mereu 15/8/23 IO

On a farm field on the outskirts of Dirksland, a village in the western part of the Netherlands, there is a kite like no other. It spins in figures of eight, generating power out of the wind. 

The king of dark money effectively controls the US supreme court now

by Joel Warner 1/06/23 The Guardian

Once again, the US supreme court has issued rulings triggering national uproar. This time, the court has ruled that universities’ race-conscious admission policies are unconstitutional, that businesses can deny services to LGBTQ+ customers, and that Joe Biden can’t move forward with his student loan forgiveness plan. And just like the justices’ decision last year to end federal abortion protections and other troubling Scotus developments this term, the court’s new decisions are all examples of how dark money reigns supreme.

China population decline accelerates as birthrate hits record low

by Helen Davidson 01/17/24 The Guardian

China’s population decline has accelerated, with a second year of record-low birthrates.

Antioxidants in fruits and flowers seem to counteract harmful effects of microplastics, study shows

By Tom Perkins 2/24/25 The Guardian

The paper focuses on microplastics’ reproductive toxicity and plant compounds called anthocyanins, which are widely found in nuts, fruits and vegetables. The new review of scientific literature on anthocyanins finds that the compounds are probably protective against a range of plastic-induced effects on hormones, reductions in testosterone and estrogen, decreased sperm counts, lower sperm quality, erectile dysfunction and ovarian damage.

The government will give homeowners $2,000 to buy kitchen-transforming stoves: 'Tons of power without … major home electrical upgrades'

by Elijah McKee 4/21/25 TCD

Induction units, on the other hand, are totally gas-free. All they need is a plug on your wall since they run entirely on electricity and energy-efficient battery storage. This means they cook food faster and cheaper and keep your lungs healthier at the same time — a true win-win. 

High rises made out of wood? What matters in whether ‘mass timber’ buildings are sustainable

by Brent Sohngen 12/11/24 The Conversation

Companies behind these “mass timber” projects say that wood is a lower-carbon alternative to steel or concrete and brings other benefits, such as faster construction time and lower cost than concrete and steel. Advocates say the wood materials, made of compressed layers of wood with glue, offer good fire safety as well.

Scientists say they’ve confirmed evidence that humans arrived in the Americas far earlier than previously thought

by Katie Hunt CNN 10/05/23

When the discovery of fossilized footprints made in what’s now New Mexico was made public in 2021, it was a bombshell moment for archaeology, seemingly rewriting a chapter of the human story. Now new research is offering further evidence of their significance.

Wind-powered cargo ship sets sail in a move to make shipping greener

by Nell Lewis 8/21/23 CNN

The shipping industry produces more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, accounting for nearly 3% of human-caused global emissions. In July, the sector pledged to reduce its planet-heating pollution to net zero “by or around 2050.” The use of wind is one way towards this. While it’s not a new concept (sailing ships date back more than 5,000 years) new wind assisted propulsion technologies have been making an appearance in recent years.

50 years ago on 9/11, Nixon and Kissinger killed Allende and Chile's Socialist Democracy

by David B 09/11/23 Daily KOS

It’s hard to believe that Henry Kissinger is still alive.  He is 100 years old now.  For some reason, war criminals live to ripe old ages.  Augusto Pinochet, the dictator who ruled Chile with a tyrannical iron fist for decades after the coup, lived to be 91. Kissinger and Nixon orchestrated the coup that killed Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile and replaced him with Pinochet, as declassified documents show, “Because Kissinger thought that Allende’s 'model' effect can be insidious."

For 50 years I’ve let friends and strangers share my house – this kind of communal living can make for better lives for all

by Lynne Segal 11/11/23 The Guardian

It’s more than half a century since I first set foot in Heathrow from Sydney, in my mid-20s, clutching my 14-month-old baby in one hand and what little remained of my luggage in the other. My large suitcase, stuffed with books and clothes, had vanished at a stopover at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka, where I narrowly avoided arrest as my infant son had startlingly managed to push an empty trolley into the glass duty-free shop, smashing part of it. I was surrounded by a hubbub of people and noise, and one man in khaki uniform who kept sidling up to me saying quietly, “Get on to the plane.” Slowly, I separated myself from those surrounding me and did just that. Twelve hours later, I landed in London, exhausted and bewildered.

PFAS levels in ground and air could be higher than expected, research suggests

by Tom Perkins 6/26/23 The Guardian

Background levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in the ground and air may be much higher than previously thought, federal testing of spatially random soil samples from across New Hampshire suggests.

Could Vienna’s approach to affordable housing work in California?

by Kristy Lang 4/30/24 The Guardian

In the past two years, at least four delegations of housing experts and political leaders from California have visited the Austrian capital, hoping to unlock the secrets of why Vienna regularly comes top in surveys of the world’s most livable cities.

Neuroscientists link low self-awareness to stronger brain reactions to moralized issues

by Eric W. Dolan PsyPost 4/01/25

A new study published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience reveals that people who hold strong moral convictions about political issues make decisions more quickly—but that these choices are shaped by both emotional brain responses and metacognitive ability. The research shows that moral conviction activates specific brain regions involved in emotion and cognitive control, and that people with lower self-awareness about their own decision accuracy show stronger brain responses to morally charged political issues.

Financial models on climate risk ‘implausible’, say actuaries

by Camilla Hodgson Financial Times 7/03/23

Financial institutions often did not understand the models they were using to predict the economic cost of climate change and were underestimating the risks of temperature rises, research led by a professional body of actuaries shows.

How tariffs supercharge home construction costs.

by Greg from Vermont 12/25/24 DailyKos

Canadian softwood lumber and plywood products are used widely across the country and dominate the New England market. The framing materials can be 30 to 50 percent of the cost of the house. The proposed tariff of 25 percent will be added directly to the cost of those elements. 1

Watch Out: Tornado Alley Is Migrating Eastward

by By Mark Fischetti, Matthew Twombly & Daniel P. Huffman 5/11/23 Scientific American

Although tornadoes touch down in many places across the eastern half of the country, from the 1950s through the 1990s they struck most often in Tornado Alley, an oval area centered on northeastern Texas and south-central Oklahoma. More recently, that focus has shifted eastward by 400 to 500 miles. In the past decade or so tornadoes have become prevalent in eastern Missouri and Arkansas, western Tennessee and Kentucky, and northern Mississippi and Alabama—a new region of concentrated storms.1

Students Solved Gerrymandering For A Science Project.

by shaggydaahoud 9/06/23

Back in 2020, three middle school students from Eastern New York solved the issue of gerrymandering, and their team leader won a $10,000 STEM prize for it. Kai Vernooy, James Lian, and Arin Khare devised a method for determining the level of gerrymandering in a state, and then applied a mathematical algorithm to draw fair and balanced districts. Coincidentally, in this 2020 article from Forbes about their project, Alabama was used as an example.1

DNA from cave dirt tells tale of how some Neanderthals disappeared=

by Ann Gibbons 4/15/21 Science Advisor

Estatuas cave in northern Spain was a hive of activity 105,000 years ago. Artifacts show its Neanderthal inhabitants hafted stone tools, butchered red deer, and may have made fires. They also shed, bled, and excreted subtler clues onto the cave floor: their own DNA. "You can imagine them sitting in the cave making tools, butchering animals. Maybe they cut themselves or their babies pooped," says population geneticist Benjamin Vernot, a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), whose perspective may have been colored by his own baby's cries during a Zoom call. "All that DNA accumulates in the dirt floors."1

Visiting green spaces deters mental health drug use, researchers find

by Damien Gayle 1/17/23 The Guardian

Visits to parks, community gardens and other urban green spaces may lower city dwellers’ use of drugs for anxiety, insomnia, depression, high blood pressure, and asthma, research has found.

Researchers in Finland found that visiting such areas three to four times a week cuts people’s chances of turning to drugs for mental health problems or high blood pressure by a third, and for asthma by about a quarter.1

Billionaire-funded group driving effort to erode democracy in key US states

Brendan Fischer 6/23/2023 The Guardian

The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based group affiliated with the alliance of conservative thinktanks called the State Policy Network, has played a key role in recent efforts to raise the threshold for passing citizen ballot initiatives from a simple majority to a supermajority, and to make it harder to place measures on the ballot in the first place.