NATURE
Twenty american chestnuts returned to the Bronx Zoo.
The blight was first documented here. Now a restoration network is taking root.
SOURCEWildlife Conservation Society / New York Restoration Project
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ALL THE SLOP
Every serving. No expiration date. Page 3 of 5.
PROGRESS
High-mileage electric cars were less likely to fail.
At 90,000–120,000 miles, EVs were about 25% less likely to fail an MOT.
SOURCEBVRLA / New AutoMotive
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NATURE
Norway created its largest marine protected area.
Andfjorden now protects 1,848.5 square kilometres.
SOURCENorwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment
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PROGRESS
Clean-energy scrap is becoming new material supply.
Old batteries, panels and blades are starting to feed the next buildout.
SOURCEReuters
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NATURE
They put eyes on a buoy. Seabird bycatch risk fell 59%.
A pair of spinning eyes and a kite gave threatened seabirds a practical way around a deadly net.
SOURCEUniversity of Exeter
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HUMANS
The helicopter crew got him off the truck in under five minutes.
An 80-foot hoist, one deputy on the wire and a crew that did not waste a second.
SOURCEMaricopa County Sheriff’s Office via People
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PROGRESS
Wind and solar saved the UK £5.9 billion in gas imports.
The clean-power buildout turned into an energy-security shield when global gas prices spiked.
SOURCECarbon Brief
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NATURE
368 farmers made a hallway. 529 elephants have already used it.
A narrow strip through the Kilombero Valley is reconnecting savanna and rainforest — one elephant at a time.
SOURCESouthern Tanzania Elephant Program
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WEIRD JOY
Backpack won Fat Bear Week.
A brown bear called Backpack packed on enough Alaska to win the internet’s favorite wildlife election.
SOURCENational Park Service
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NATURE
After a 99.5% crash, the Bogong moths are swarming again.
The sky is filling with a migration Australia feared it had lost.
SOURCEABC News
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WEIRD JOY
Peanut butter failed. Burnt coconut found a new species.
Two mice, one mountain valley, and twenty-two years of patient taxonomy.
SOURCEZooKeys / PubMed Central
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PROGRESS
The ocean can take their land. It can’t take their country.
The first global political declaration on sea-level rise says an island state does not stop being a country because rising water makes its land uninhabitable.
SOURCEAlliance of Small Island States / United Nations
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NATURE
New York City planted 18,261 trees. It started with the hottest blocks.
New York City planted its most trees in a decade and prioritized neighborhoods where extreme heat hits hardest.
SOURCENew York City Mayor’s Office
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PROGRESS
The last of 65 offshore turbines just clicked into place.
The final turbine is installed at Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt offshore project built to serve Rhode Island and Connecticut.
SOURCEConnecticut Governor’s Office / Revolution Wind
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PROGRESS
Kosovo spent 27 years clearing landmines. The job is done.
HALO Trust has concluded humanitarian mine clearance in Kosovo, 27 years after the war left fields, roads and villages contaminated.
SOURCEThe HALO Trust / Positive News
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WEIRD JOY
Two new sea spiders turned up in the Salish Sea. One has hairy feet.
UBC divers found the first new sea spider species described in the Salish Sea in almost a century. One has red eyes and fuzzy-looking legs.
SOURCEUniversity of British Columbia
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PROGRESS
Germany wrote down how it will quit fossil fuels. Deadline: 2045.
Europe's largest economy published a sector-by-sector plan to leave coal, oil and gas behind, only the third country to do so.
SOURCEGerman Federal Environment Ministry / DW
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NATURE
THE MEADOW GREW BACK.
NATURE
They stopped dragging chains. The seagrass erased 94% of the scars.
Ten traditional chain moorings were replaced with eco-moorings that move with the tide instead of scraping circles through the seabed. Five years later, the damaged patches had shrunk by an average 93.6%.
SOURCENational Trust / Studland Bay Marine Partnership
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PROGRESS
Nairobi revived two old libraries. Patronage jumped 240%.
Book Bunk and Nairobi City County restored Eastlands and Kaloleni public libraries as free civic hubs. Book Bunk reports patronage up more than 240%.
SOURCEBook Bunk Trust / Reasons to Be Cheerful
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WEIRD JOY
This one-gram robot can hop over a stair.
DirectHop uses a tiny motor and three folding legs to make controlled, repeated jumps. The prototype can clear a standard stair and twitch itself upright after a fall.
SOURCEUniversity of Washington / Newswise
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PROGRESS
On Leith Walk, bikes just outnumbered cars at rush hour.
During one May morning count, Cycling Scotland recorded more bikes than cars on Leith Walk from 8 to 9 a.m.—a first for that route, not a claim about the whole city.
SOURCECycling Scotland / The Scotsman
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HUMANS
THE LINE HELD.
HUMANS
A high school football team pulled a pontoon out of a flash flood.
When flash flooding hit New Richland, Minnesota, players from the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva football team helped with a pontoon rescue instead of watching from the bank.
SOURCEKEYC News
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WEIRD JOY
NINETY-NINE, IN SQUASH.
WEIRD JOY
A farm built a world-record Attenborough portrait out of pumpkins.
Sunnyfields Farm unveiled a giant mosaic portrait of Sir David Attenborough assembled from pumpkins, breaking its own world record for the largest pumpkin mosaic.
SOURCEBBC News
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PROGRESS
A WALL THAT BREATHES.
PROGRESS
They skipped the seawall and put 22 concrete arches in the lagoon instead.
A 200-foot eroded bank at Sebastian Inlet State Park got 22 honeycomb reef arches and up to 90 red mangroves instead of a wall — finished September 10.
SOURCESebastian Daily
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