Today’s Solutions: January 12, 2025

Science

From mathematics and AI to medicine and psychology, The Optimist Daily features the latest news on discoveries, technological advances, and breakthroughs in the world of science. Our Science section is here to engage and enlighten you.

Solar power Plant in small village in India

Welcome to Modhera, India’s first village entirely powered by solar

Modhera in Gujarat became India's first solar-powered village, setting a precedent for what UN Secretary-General António Guterres called a "reconciliation between humanity and the planet," according to Euronews. UN News reports that the solar project provides residents of Modhera with an Read More...

illustration of brain giving off signals

Brain implant allows completely “locked-in” patient to communicate

Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Niels Birbaumer, a former neuroscientist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and Dr. Ujwal Chaundhary, a former biomedical engineer at the same university and the current managing director at ALS Voice gGmbH, a German-based neurobiotechnology company, a totally Read More...

Hearing therapy

New regenerative therapy reverses hearing loss

We don’t really appreciate how important hearing is until it starts diminishing. Those with hearing loss and their loved ones might realize then that this is an essential part of most people's communication and connection. Biotech company Frequency Therapeutics has found a way to reconnect those Read More...

Hadron Collider

Another period of world-changing discovery begins at the Large Hadron Collider

10 years ago, at the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland, the world changed with the discovery of the Higgs boson, also known as the “God Particle.” This was evidence of the Higgs field, an invisible energy field throughout the universe. The discovery of the Higgs boson explains three Read More...

baby humpback whale looks into camera

Humpback whales may sing their beautiful songs to "see"

Have you ever been so fortunate as to have heard the long and complex song of a humpback whale? Marine biologists have long thought that these hauntingly beautiful songs, which are only sung by male whales, function like mating calls. However, it turns out that the whales may break out into song Read More...

Underwater sculptures

Italian fisherman uses underwater sculptures to stop trawling

Italian fisherman Paolo Fanciulli had been fishing the waters of the Maremma coastline for almost 40 years. These sea habitats near Tuscany, and Fanciulli’s livelihood, came under threat, however, in the form of illegal trawling, dragging huge nets through the water to catch large amounts of Read More...

plastics

Canada outlines plan to ban single-use plastic

Canada has now become a world leader in environmental policy. On Monday, it laid out its final plans and regulations on how it intends to ban single-use plastics.  Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the country recycles “only 8 percent of the plastic [Canada] throws away” and Read More...

Pee Wheat

Helping the environment and fertilizing crops by upcycling pee

Here’s something you probably never thought you’d hear: the price of urine per 25 liters has risen from $1 to $6 since the start of the War in Ukraine. This is because there’s now a shortage of agricultural chemicals, and farmers and providers have turned to human urine as an abundant source Read More...

Hydrogen factory

New electrolyzer improves green hydrogen production

Green hydrogen continues to gain momentum in funding and research. The hydrogen market is projected to grow to $2.5 trillion by 2050. "Green" hydrogen is hydrogen fuel made using energy from zero-carbon renewable sources through a method called electrolysis. As the world seeks to limit its carbon Read More...

A person typing on Google search engine from a laptop. Google is the biggest Internet search engine in the world.

Google puts data privacy back into users hands

Due to various political and healthcare data breaches setting off alarm bells, the general public is slowly realizing that their data is at risk of being used against them in potentially harmful ways. At issue as well, "big data" collection is such a new technology that there are few laws in place Read More...