How offshore wind foundations became accidental reef habitat
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM When engineers drove 54 steel cylinders into the sandy seafloor southeast of Long Island to anchor Empire Wind 1's turbines, the goal was simple: keep 810 megawatts of generating capacity upright in the Atlantic. What happened next was quite Read More...
New York sends $189 million to close the summer hunger gap
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Here's some food for thought: for students, free lunch ends when school does. For the millions of children who rely on subsidized cafeteria meals during the year, nothing automatically fills that gap in June. On July 1, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that Read More...
New York Governor protects transgender youth’s right to transition-related care
New York Governor Kathy Hochul took an important step toward preserving the rights of transgender adolescents on Sunday, June 25th, by signing legislation to protect their access to transition-related medical treatment. The new law not only prevents New York courts from enforcing regulations from Read More...
Making spongier and more climate-resilient cities
We decided to revamp a story about a wonderful solution, with a few updates. 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 Read More...
New NY bill raises age to buy and own semi-automatic rifles
In the wake of multiple mass shootings, there’s been a lot of serious discussion concerning who should have access to guns. Earlier this month, New York’s legislature decided to ban anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing or possessing a semi-automatic rifle. What is a semi-automatic Read More...
What tiny water samples teach us about huge creatures
Environmental DNA (eDNA) has been a recent gold mine in research. We recently reported on how eDNA was captured from the air in a world first and how scientists were able to use this technique to distinguish zoo animals from it. This incredible tool can help ecologists study animal behavior and Read More...
A new approach to treating brain aneurysms
A brain aneurysm is defined as a weakness in a blood vessel. This area then becomes susceptible to filling with blood and creating a dome, just like a balloon. Causing increased pressure in the brain and loss of oxygen to the surrounding cells, leading to sometimes deadly outcomes. A wide-necked Read More...
One ambitious crew is bringing carbon-neutral shipping to the Hudson River
Many conscious consumers choose to limit their online shopping to reduce their personal footprint, but entrepreneur Sam Merrett is taking sustainable commerce to a new level. After purchasing a 64-foot steel-hulled sailboat on Craigslist in 2015, he launched a “clean shipping” venture which Read More...
New York aims to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035
We wrote recently about New York City’s plan to create an expansive electrical vehicle (EV) charging network as part of an initiative to slash the city’s carbon emissions. New York is also taking another significant step towards this goal by banning the sale of all gas-powered vehicles in the Read More...
Three ways we can repurpose closed department stores
40 percent of US department stores have closed their doors in the past five years, but the question remains: what do we do with these huge spaces? Many will be demolished, but some communities are turning defunct big-box stores into repurposed useful spaces. Library Department stores and Read More...