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As Farmers Face a Warmer Future, an Ancient Grain Shows Promise

The United Nations has declared 2023 the International Year of Millets, which are a type of small grain mostly grown in parts of Asia and Africa. The highly resilient and cost-friendly grains could become a useful crop for the Midwest in the midst…

30/05/2023 Undark Magazine

The Dawn of an Auto-Captioned World

Automated live captions used to be terrible. But they’re becoming transformative for people who can’t hear.

28/05/2023 The Atlantic

Local farmers in South Africa were cut out of rooibos tea cash. Now change is brewing

For generations, the Khoisan people harvested the rooibos plant to make tea. As this caffeine-free drink has grown trendy — 9,000 tons exported a year — they've been cut out of revenues. Until now.

27/05/2023 NPR

‘A gamechanger’: new meningitis vaccine hailed as major step

An effective, affordable meningitis vaccine has been successfully tested in Africa, raising hopes for the elimination of a disease that kills 250,000 people a year.

25/05/2023 The Guardian

Old tyres can become a climate-friendly fuel

Getting rid of old tyres has long been a problem. Every year more than a billion reach the end of the road. Until recently, most were thrown into landfills or piled up in storage yards, which occasionally caught fire. Tougher environmental laws mean…

24/05/2023 Economist

France bans short-haul flights in effort to fight climate change

France has formally banned domestic flights on short routes that can be covered by train in less than two-and-a-half hours in a move aimed at reducing airline emissions.

24/05/2023 Al Jazeera

A new research effort takes aim at 8 rare diseases. It could revolutionize many more.

The new project, Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium, hopes its work on 8 rare diseases will set the standard and framework to help thousands of others.

24/05/2023 USA Today

In Brazil’s Favelas, Green Roofs Might Help Relieve the Heat

Low-income neighborhoods are more likely to face extreme heat — and its negative health effects. One nonprofit in Rio de Janeiro teamed up with researchers to adapt green roof technology for their overlooked neighborhood. Could it offer a model for…

22/05/2023 Undark Magazine

New Zealand announces its biggest emissions reduction project in history

New Zealand has announced its largest emissions reduction project in history, transitioning from coal to renewable electricity at the country’s major steel plant in a move that the government says is equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road.

22/05/2023 The Guardian

Can ‘enhanced rock weathering’ help combat climate change?

'Enhanced rock weathering' uses tiny volcanic rocks to capture the greenhouse gas carbon from the atmosphere.

21/05/2023 BBC

Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first production of ‘miracle’ tandem cells

World’s first commercialisation of perovskite solar cells follows years of breakthroughs with the material

19/05/2023 The Independent

Insects are thriving in England's rivers after fall in metal pollution

An analysis of 30 years of monitoring data shows an upward trend in the population of insects and other invertebrates in English rivers, which may be linked to lower levels of zinc and copper

19/05/2023 NewScientist

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