The Optimist Today
Lego is making bricks that teach blind students how to read Braille
In one of the newest Lego sets under development, the bumps that hold the toys together have a second purpose: They also help children learn Braille. The series of dots on each brick represents a different letter of the Braille alphabet, the numbers zero through nine, and a handful of math symbols. Read More...
You have to see these images of Holland’s hypnotic tulip fields from high above
The Spring season is the time of the year where nature’s bright colors return after a long winter, and nowhere is that truer than in the Netherlands. Springtime in the Netherlands is synonymous with tulip season when fields of the famous Dutch bulb spring to life in vast arrays of dizzying color. Read More...
Don’t toss your old clothes in the trash! Here’s how to recycle them instead
No matter how much you might want to keep repairing your longtime favorite shirt so you can keep wearing it, at some point, it’s time to let it go. But wait! Don’t throw in the trash. Textile waste, which includes everything from old shirts to carpets and comforters, is an enormous problem. We Read More...
Scientists have finally come up with a refrigerator that doesn’t pollute
While your refrigerator is busy cooling your foods, it’s also heating up the atmosphere. That’s because most conventional refrigeration devices rely on compression of gases to produce their cooling effect. It works, but gas refrigerators are energy-hungry, and the hydrofluorocarbons they use Read More...
Paul Hawken has 100 solutions to climate change, complete with models
We need solutions to climate change and world renowned author Paul Hawken as some. A total of 100, in fact. Hawken is a legend in environmental circles. Since the early 1980s, he has been starting green businesses, writing books on ecological commerce (President Bill Clinton called Read More...
Parkinson’s patients walk freely once more thanks to electrical stimulus
For many patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, walking normally simply isn’t possible. Scientists believe this is because Parkinson’s disrupts the signals that the brain and the legs send to each other in order to move. Based upon this inference, scientists in Canada have been testing Read More...
Extinction Rebellion’s climate action message is going mainstream
We’re only four months into the year, but 2019 will always be known as the year that environmental activists stopped playing nicely and started demanding action. Civil disobedience entered the headlines when students around the world began ditching class on Fridays to urge politicians to act, and Read More...
Britain went the entire Easter weekend without using coal power
This weekend, Britain showed that it’s possible in this day and age to live without coal —at least, when the conditions are right. For a stretch of time spanning more than 90 hours this Easter weekend, Britain generated no electricity at all from coal, marking the longest period since the Read More...
The world’s biggest shipping company is testing greener fuels
Shipping accounts for 90 percent of the transported goods around the world and 3 percent of total global CO2 emissions. That number is set to rise to 15 percent by 2050 if left unchecked. The good news is that number is not being left unchecked by the world’s largest shipping company: Maersk. The Read More...
How a drone rediscovered a rare Hawaiian flower thought to be extinct
There are many benefits to living on a sheer cliff face, if you’re a very rare Hawaiian plant. Hungry goats can’t get to you. Neither can oblivious people, who are known to crush priceless plants underfoot. Nor can botanists, even though they just want to save the plants. That’s Read More...