Headlines

A Mexican entrepreneur turned discarded plastic into low-cost homes for families in poverty; each 430-460 sq ft house used 2 tonnes of waste, took 7 days to build and cost families about $280

An EcoDom prototype house built using its plastic panels. Plastic production has increased exponentially over the last few decades. A 2017 study published in Science Advances estimated that 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced globally since large-scale production began. Only a tiny fraction has been recycled, with huge amounts accumulating in landfills, ecosystems…

Read Full News

Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans’ Charity Hospital to close in 2005; 21 years later, the million-sq-ft building is being transformed into a $500 million medical research hub

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, doctors at the Charity Hospital scrambled to keep patients alive without power or functioning medical equipment as floodwaters trapped them inside its darkened halls for days on end. The massive hospital that had cared for the city’s residents for years was shuttered after the last patients and…

Read Full News

Viking Textile Fragments: Rare textile fragments have survived for around 1,300 years inside a Viking woman’s Danish grave because metallic salts released by two brooches inhibited microbes that would normally destroy the cloth

Credit: Arkæologi Vestjylland Danish archaeologists have unearthed rare textile remains from a Viking woman’s grave near Varde, in the heart of Western Jutland. During excavations at the Skonager site (ARV 661), a team of archaeologists discovered a Viking Age burial in which fragments of clothing survived against all odds. This discovery gives a rare glimpse…

Read Full News

No surrender, no dissent: How six months of war hardened Iran’s leadership

Tehran’s leaders appear determined to maintain confrontation with Washington while ensuring that economic hardship does not translate into political unrest. Six months into its war with the United States and Israel, Iran’s leadership has tightened its grip around a core of hard-line military commanders and clerics, signalling that it will resist US pressure abroad while…

Read Full News

Scientists spent 100 years discovering new animals and found that hotspots are emerging in unexpected places; it is now reshaping the understanding of biodiversity

Representative Image (AI-generated) For much of the past century, scientists have steadily expanded the catalogue of life on Earth, adding species that were previously unknown to science and refining the ranges of those already documented. But what happens when those discoveries are added back into the maps scientists use to understand global biodiversity? A new…

Read Full News

In 2002, Alabama architecture students stacked 72,000 worn carpet tiles into the walls of a family home; Rural Studio has now built more than 200 projects

A house in Alabama contains walls adorned with 72,000 individual stacked tiles held in compression by a heavy wooden-ring beam. Belonging to the Harris family, the abode contains a bedroom above and a tornado shelter below. The minds behind the idea trace back to Rural Studio, an off-campus design-build program, rooted in Hale County and…

Read Full News

A former Illinois elementary school closed in 2014; its site has now become a $1.35 million fully accessible park with an inclusive playground, walking paths and a new splash pad

On August 26 at 11:30, roughly 75 people gathered at Cooke Park for the official ribbon-cutting, capping a years-long transformation of the former Cooke Elementary School property into a fully accessible neighbourhood park. The ceremony, conducted by the Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce, took place with the new splash pad running behind the crowd, water…

Read Full News

US to establish first space academy, expand ‘far beyond the Moon’

The proposed ‘US Space Academy’ intends to strengthen the nation’s space workforce and develop the next generation of space leaders (Photo: Nasa). US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to establish the country’s first space academy and interacted with astronauts stationed at the International Space Station, during a visit to Nasa’s Mission…

Read Full News