ALL THE SLOP

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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A vitamin-derived molecule reached its target in mitochondrial disease patients.

A Cambridge-led study gave nicotinamide riboside to eight people with mitochondrial DNA disease. It was well tolerated and showed early signs of working.

SOURCEGenome Medicine / University of Cambridge

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THE RIVER DIDN'T GET TO KEEP IT.

The river took a baby elephant. Five fishermen brought it back.

A days-old elephant calf drifted roughly four kilometers down the Teesta. Five fishermen reached it by boat; forest officials reunited it with its mother.

SOURCEThe Indian Express / West Bengal Forest Department

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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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Los Angeles emptied the dog kennels for a day. 37 dogs never went back.

Los Angeles got 395 shelter dogs out for a day. Twenty-three were adopted and 14 entered foster homes instead of returning to kennels.

SOURCEBest Friends Animal Society

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An experimental drug gave mice with MS-like disease their movement back.

In a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, the experimental drug K-9 restored function after paralysis and vision loss had already set in. It has not been tested in people with MS.

SOURCENational Institutes of Health / UVA Health

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Chagas treatment just got cut from 60 days to 30.

In the TESEO trial, 450 adults received different benznidazole regimens. The 30-day, once-daily option matched the standard 60-day course in the trial and caused fewer side effects.

SOURCEUTEP

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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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SHE PICKED CALIFORNIA.

A sea turtle just nested on the West Coast for the first time on record.

Lifeguards were called to an injured turtle near Seal Beach on 16 September. She was not injured. She was digging a nest — and three days later it happened again near the Huntington Beach Pier. NOAA Fisheries says it is the first recorded natural nesting of any sea turtle species on the U.S. West Coast. Both nests are now fenced, signed and monitored.

SOURCELos Angeles Times / NOAA Fisheries

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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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THE SCAN CAME BACK EMPTY.

Two doses of a new immunotherapy cleared a child's liver cancer.

Researchers at Texas Children's, Baylor College of Medicine and Seattle Children's reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that a child with hepatoblastoma had complete regression of disease after a novel immunotherapy given as part of the CARE study.

SOURCETexas Children's Hospital

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THE HAND FELT BACK.

He lost his arm at 16. Now he can feel his wife's hand.

Seventeen years after an amputation, Alexander “Avi” Davidson became the first participant to take Utah's thought-controlled bionic arm home — with a nerve interface that gives it a sense of touch.

SOURCEUniversity of Utah Health

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A WALL THAT BREATHES.

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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FIVE LEFT. STILL HERE.

The bird that once had five left just won Bird of the Year.

Karure black robins fell to five birds in 1980. Decades of conservation brought them back to around 350 adults — and on September 21 the species won New Zealand’s 2026 Bird of the Year.

SOURCEForest & Bird

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TWO ORIGINS. ONE BRAIN.

The human brain may have been built from two ancient systems.

Stanford researchers found the forebrain/midbrain and hindbrain arise from distinct progenitor cell populations — and used that insight to grow functional human hindbrain motor neurons in the lab.

SOURCEStanford Medicine

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FIFTY YEARS. NO DOG-MEDIATED HUMAN CASES.

Chile just got WHO validation for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies.

Chile became the first South American country validated by WHO for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies as a public-health problem after more than five decades without a dog-mediated human case.

SOURCEWorld Health Organization

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Côte d’Ivoire connected 3.56 million more people…