The discovery of ancient sippy cups could explain prehistoric baby boom
Time for a little history lesson: In Southeastern Europe, starting around 7000 BC, people began farming and raising livestock after millennia of hunting and gathering. Archaeologists studying ancient human remains noticed that around the same time, populations in early farming cultures started to Read More...
Public buses are finally on schedule in New York, thanks to traffic restrictions
These are good days for public buses in New York City. After years and years of crawling behind the traffic and yellow cabs, busses are actually running ahead of schedule. Why? Because the city’s Department of Transportation has been restricting the number of vehicles that can travel on Read More...
Paris just opened a cemetery dedicated to green burials
In a 2017 study, the City of Paris discovered something rather shocking about traditional burial practices: the average burial generates, on average, 833 kilograms (or almost 1 ton) of carbon dioxide, which is nearly the equivalent of a round-trip flight between Paris and New York. Part of those Read More...
Turns out painting the streets white doesn’t make cities cooler
At The Optimist Daily, we’re here to bring you solutions. It’s what we do. But when we offer solutions and they don’t pan out like expected, we recognize the importance of relaying that information. The following is one of those cases. Many cities in warmer climates have been painting Read More...
How land protection can actually promote employment—especially in rural areas
There’s a debate about whether or not land conservation can also help local economies. On the one hand, some worry that land protection inhibits economic growth by restricting local resource use or building opportunities. On the other hand, there are those who say land protection can support Read More...
MIT scientists have figured out how to make cement without emissions
The production of cement currently accounts for about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, leading to calls for architects to stop using it. That’s a hard sell, considering cement is such useful material. Fortunately, researchers at MIT have demonstrated an experimental way of Read More...
New Mars rover discovery shows planet may have been home to an ancient oasis
Photographs and rovers have given scientists a small peek into the mysterious surface of Mars, but the history and composition of our neighboring planet is still largely unknown. One of the features the Mars Curiosity rover has discovered is the 100 mile wide Gale Crater which may have once been Read More...
California just legalized public banks. That’s amazing for communities
The Standing Rock movement in 2016 brought together Indigenous activists from across the nation to fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. One of the demands of this movement included divestment from Wells Fargo, a bank that was funding the development of the pipeline. This brought into the Read More...
Apple partners with Conservation International to restore degraded grasslands in Africa
Despite growing interest in the potential of forests and other ecosystems to help address global warming, conservation organizations are still struggling to find the money to fund these natural solutions to climate change. In a bid to ease these efforts, Apple has recently partnered up with Read More...
Surgeon successfully conducts world’s first remote heart surgery
While robotics entered the world of medicine almost two decades ago, using robots to perform complicated surgical operations from a distance has been a pipe dream – that is up until now. Thanks to a new technological breakthrough, a surgeon in India has successfully performed the first remote Read More...