2026

Nearly two centuries after a formerly enslaved pioneer bought 80 acres of Illinois prairie and founded the first legally registered town in the United States platted by an African American, nearly 20 acres of the historic townsite have officially been transferred to the National Park Service.According to the National Park Service, the land was donated…

Texas park authorities have acquired a 1,720-acre ranch in Uvalde County to create Bear Creek State Park, offering outdoor visitors a more natural and rugged alternative to the heavily developed recreation areas nearby. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), the property was purchased for $33.5 million using a one-time state appropriation. It…

For generations, cow manure was simply an unavoidable byproduct of running a dairy farm. At Jordan Dairy Farms in Rutland, Massachusetts, however, it became something much more valuable: a source of electricity, heat, fertiliser and even animal bedding. In 2011, the family-run dairy installed what it describes as the first agricultural anaerobic digester in Massachusetts….

A data centre quietly produces heat every second it is operating. Behind the walls, rows of servers process data continuously, turning large amounts of electricity into computing power and, inevitably, excess heat. That heat has to be removed to keep the equipment within safe operating temperatures, adding significantly to the facility’s energy demand. Green Mountain…

55-meters-deep Swedish limestone quarry When mining stopped at an isolated limestone quarry in central Sweden in 1990, the local area was left with a 55-metre-deep industrial pit cut into the pine forests outside Rättvik. Just a year later, a former opera singer discovered that the abandoned quarry had remarkable natural acoustics. Today, the former mining…