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…