China’s multi-decade long, successful effort to plant a ring of trees around one of the world’s most hostile deserts has sprouted an unexpected benefit to humanity.

On February 9th, SeaWorld in Orlando received a call that there was an exhausted manatee stuck in a storm drain that needed immediate help.

Arriving on scene, rescuers quickly confirmed that the juvenile male had entered a storm drain and didn’t know how to escape.

20 years ago today, American speed skater Shani Davis became the first Black athlete to win a gold medal in Winter Olympic history for an individual event, winning the men’s 1,000-meter in Italy. He also won a silver medal in the 1500-meter race. Four years later at the Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, he repeated the feat, and became the first man to win back-to-back gold medals in the 1000 meters, and repeating as the 1500-meter silver medalist, too. WATCH him win the gold… (2006)

A police officer and self-described “dog guy,” hooked his own instincts up to those of a local dog to find a missing 3-year-old in Kentucky.

There was a drone and helicopter in the air and a half-dozen officers from the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department scouring the immediate location of a missing persons call on January 7th.

Decades of underinvestment in mining and refining across Europe and North America has landed the manufacturing sector in a problem, which a group of scientists believe can be helped by mushrooms rather than excavators.

From Arkansas comes the story of a huge animal rescue operation of 51 dogs trapped in a derelict shelter.

Headquartered in nearby Nashville, Tennessee, the Animal Rescue Corps (ARC) received information about a nonprofit dog rescue in Ashdown, Arkansas, where an acrimonious divorce between the shelter’s owners left the dogs caught in the crossfire.

In the city of The Hague, a Dutch agri-tech firm has had the bright idea of combining a greenhouse grow operation with a grocery and delivery business.

Called LocalDutch, their idea is that the greenhouse grocers will integrate on-site food production with direct-to-consumer retail and local delivery in a single location, hoping the result will reduce transportation costs and food waste.

Happy 69th Birthday to a titan of folk music: the multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt. Born in Manitoba to Irish-Scottish ancestry, she fell in love with Celtic music traditions after a trip to Ireland. She learned how to play the Celtic harp and used it on the busk to make money to record her first album. She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide, with each album featuring a mix of different folk music traditions. During her production in the 90s, The Visit and Book of Secrets were certified quadruple platinum in Canada, while The Mask and Mirror reached triple. She has collected many honors for her music from both industry awards, and the country of Canada. LISTEN to her fill the Alhambra with her beautiful voice… (1967)

Amid the scorching/freezing desert of Atacama in Chile, one of South America’s largest botanical storehouses aims to protect both the wild and cultivated heritage of the country’s plant life.

One of England’s poorest coastal towns is filled with “hope and relief” after their last youth center was saved from closure.

The nonprofit Pie Factory Music has been based in Ramsgate, on the coast of Kent, for 13 years. It offers counseling, employment advice, life-skills, creative projects, or just a safe supportive space to make friends, for 8 to 25-year-olds.

A scientist who figured out the secret behind ancient Rome’s self-repairing concrete has recently confirmed his theory at a Pompeii building site where such concrete was in use.

Over the last 25 years, Californian fishing regulations have seen the dramatic recovery of various game fish like sea bass and rockfish to the point where they can be fished sustainably again.

Collectively known as groundfish, these stocks were serially depleted in the 1990s and early 2000s. Fish like ocean perch and bocaccio live close to the sea bed, and fishermen adopted bottom trawling nets that depleted the fish and destroyed their habitat.