Environment
Need some good news about the environment? The Optimist Daily is your go-to herald of positive environmental news, highlighting eco-friendly solutions and scientific progress around climate action, circularity, conservation, and more. Learn about everything eco in our Environment section.
This cultural center in Sweden makes a case for wooden skyscrapers
Back in 2019, we introduced you to the world’s tallest wooden building in Finland. Today, we’d like to take you across the border to Skelleftea, in Sweden, where wood is regaining popularity as the go-to material for new buildings. A few months ago, the Swedish town actually became home to the Read More...
Can NFTs help save the Amazon?
Non-Fungible Tokens, commonly known as NFTs, are crypto-acquired assets in the form of digital art. These “one-of-a-kind” digital pieces rose in popularity last year, with plenty of influential personalities and celebrities purchasing them, often at exorbitant prices. Well, whether you’re Read More...
How much energy? Your home energy questions answered
Every day we have a choice in which appliance to use. The kettle or the stove? A bath or a shower? Most of the time it's convenience and habit that automatically choose between our options. However, it may be useful to pause for a second and consider which is more efficient in terms of costs and Read More...
Ultrathin "honeycomb" solar panels achieve record efficiency
One day, cities and hopefully everything else will be powered by renewable resources like wind and solar. To do that, though, we will need to continue to improve on our renewable tech, like creating solar panels that can absorb solar energy in many different levels of sunlight. A new development Read More...
This dating app connects vegans and vegetarians
These days, the dating scene can be an overwhelming place to be. With all the potential connections that we quite literally have at our fingertips, we have way more people to vet than we did in the past. Although the number of people embracing plant-based diets is growing, for vegans and Read More...
New temperature-controlling material inspired by squid skin
Squids are intelligent, somewhat mystifying creatures whose brains have a complexity level similar to dogs and the astounding adaptation of camouflage. Their bodies are covered in special pigment-filled cells called chromatophores that expand and contract in light, enabling them to change color and Read More...
Sponge Cities: the future of flood resilience
The world’s cities and population centers are overwhelmingly located near water. This makes good sense since water is essential for living, and throughout history, people have built their settlements where water is accessible and in abundant supply. However, in recent decades the vital good that Read More...
Deep sea snail venom lessens pain as well as morphine
Because Asprella cone snails reside at such great depths, scientists have not thoroughly studied them. Now we know, though, that these creatures have an impressive hunting strategery where they use their venom to stun and disorient fish. Then they feast upon the unfortunate fish, like a gory scene Read More...
The climate victory garden movement is springing up all over America
A lot of people picked up vegetable gardening as a pandemic pastime, but what started as a casual time (and tummy) filler has become a mainstay for many Americans. According to Green America, an organization focused on encouraging people to grow their own food to fight climate change, offset Read More...
Norway's walrus population bounces back thanks to hunting bans
Imagine the marvelous mass of a walrus, lying leisurely in its natural habitat. What does the landscape surrounding your imagined walrus look like? You’re probably picturing this tusked creature on a frigid chunk of ice, and that’s because walruses eventually settled mostly in two main places Read More...