World

In 1999, American teacher Ronald Sakolsky was teaching English in Luoyang, China, when a television report about Yin Yuzhen, a woman battling desertification in Inner Mongolia’s Mu Us Sandy Land, moved him deeply. He decided to help and spent about two months raising $5,000 through a US-based charity to support Yin’s tree-planting work. The money…

Larry Walters could not take any photo as his flight turned chaotic but this photo was taken by his girlfriend before the flight. The Internet still can’t believe that a Los Angeles man in 1982 tied a few balloons to a lawn chair and flew in the sky for 45 minutes. Larry Walters became a…

A small teabag may not seem like much of a solution to polluted drinking water, but for Minnesota student Vick Tan, it became the centre of a science project that went far beyond the classroom. Tan helped develop a simple-looking pouch designed to capture arsenic from contaminated water, using a mix of cellulose fabric, crushed…

The image is for representation purposes only. For centuries the waters of the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river, have concealed the remains of a remarkable Roman engineering feat. The river is currently at extremely low levels, and parts of a 1,600-year-old bridge are emerging from the water, giving archaeologists a rare glimpse of a structure that…

Earlier in August, news broke that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to shell out $20 million to acquire thousands of electric-shock gloves. Dubbed the “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter,” or G.L.O.V.E, the devices deliver a painful electric shock meant to immobilise anybody at the mere flick of a wrist. While the gloves may be…

PC: Richart Sowa / Facebook British artist Richart Sowa spent years collecting plastic bottles for a project most people would never attempt: building an entire island to live on. The result, called Joyxee Island, floated roughly 30 yards off the coast of Isla Mujeres, a small island off Mexico’s Caribbean coast, with its base built…

Two people can hit the exact same confusing, unresolved question and respond in completely different ways. One feels the confusion purely as discomfort, something to be resolved as quickly as possible by picking whichever answer sounds most reasonable and then moving on without looking back. The other feels that same confusion as something closer to…

Hofstra University professor Richard Himelfarb faces probe over remark during faculty meeting/Image: Hofstra News. A US professor has spent nearly a year under investigation after a colleague accused him of racial discrimination over his use of the phrase “word salad” during a faculty meeting at a New York university.Richard Himelfarb, a political science professor at…

YouTubers MeganPlays and Leah Ashe were once very close friends and popular names in the Roblox community. They made videos together and even shared a Roblox channel. However, their friendship fell apart after Leah became involved with Megan’s ex-husband, Zach Letter. Now, almost a year after the controversy began, Leah has apologized to Megan in…

Flor Juanga, a Shuar community representative from Ecuador’s Sucumbios Province. In Ecuador’s Amazon, planting a tree can mean much more than restoring a patch of forest. For Indigenous women such as Flor Juanga, a Shuar community representative from Sucumbíos Province, trees are tied to food, wildlife, family, culture and the future of the community. Juanga…