The 2021 winners of a major international environmental award have just been announced, and the list includes a Vietnamese conservationist who’s known for his vital work helping protect the pangolin—the world’s most trafficked animal. Award…
Google and Harvard Map Our Ridiculously Complex Brain Connections in Unprecedented Detail
There are more possible connections between neurons in the brain than there are stars in the galaxy, making the ole’ noggin the most complex supercomputer we know of. To map the connections in just one millimeter of cerebral cortex tissue require…
See the Strange, Beautiful Landscapes of Washington State Revealed by Lasers
Staggering images taken from planes using forest-penetrating radar are mapping the geology of Washington state. Intriguing, artsy, beautiful, and outright bizarre, “The Bare Earth” presentation on the Washington state Department of Natural …
Good News in History, June 24
120 years ago today, the shoe salesman Chuck Taylor was born in Indiana. While playing basketball in high school, Taylor began wearing the Converse All-Star shoe introduced way back in 1917. He became such a fan that he approached the company for a job…
Laid Off During COVID, Dad Wants to Work at Costco: ‘I told Twitter about it—cue social media explosion’
The gods of the Twitterverse are mercurial and unpredictable. All hashtags aside, why some tweets trend and others tank is anyone’s guess. So when a doting daughter’s random tweet recently scored a dream job interview for her dad, it came as a huge cos…
Orchid Thought to Be Extinct in UK Was Discovered Blooming on the Rooftop of London Bank
An extremely rare colony of orchids previously believed to be extinct in Britain has been discovered growing on a City of London rooftop. The small-flowered tongue orchid, or serapias parviflora, is normally found in the Mediterranean, and hasn’t been …
Farmers Now Use Floating Gardens To Keep Crops Alive When it Floods — A Climate Crisis Lesson
Bangladesh’s floating gardens, built to grow food during flood seasons, could offer a sustainable solution for parts of the world prone to flooding because of climate change, a new study has found. The study suggests that floating gardens might n…
Mr. Trash Wheel is Gobbling up Millions of Pounds of Trash
For years, the ambiguous yet contented face of Mr. Trash Wheel has been an icon of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The googly-eyed trash collector has been gobbling up millions of pounds of the city’s river-borne garbage for years, and led to the…
Scientists Have Figured Out How to Instantly Cure Hiccups
Many of us have some cure for the hiccups, whether that’s drinking water upside-down or holding our breath, but a peculiar type of drinking straw, developed by a peculiar type of scientist, seems to be impressively effective. Stopping 92% of atta…
Hospital Co-Workers Donate Their Kidneys to Save Each Other’s Husbands
The COVID-19 pandemic has put life as we knew it on hold for more than a year, but as things finally settle back into a new normal, people are returning to the workplace. For two co-workers catching up during a chance encounter, swapping news serendipi…