2026

Representative Image of an underwater archaeological site beneath Dicle Dam Lake (AI-generated image) Beneath the still waters of Dicle Dam Lake in southeastern Turkey, an entire neighbourhood of stone houses, a mosque, a religious school and rock-cut tombs has sat largely undisturbed since the reservoir was filled nearly three decades ago. In recent months, a…

Representative Image of the newly discovered Demon Cavefish in a dark underwater cave (Image of University of Alabama at Huntsville) For more than three decades, biologists have carried out quarterly surveys of Bobcat Cave in northern Alabama, a site that sits beneath the secured grounds of the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal and is already home…

Life-size dolls seated in a classroom PC: Fritz Schumann High in the mountains of Shikoku, in Japan’s Tokushima Prefecture, sits Nagoro, a village that once had over 300 residents and now has fewer than 30. What makes Nagoro unusual is not simply its decline, a familiar story across rural Japan, but what one resident chose…

Representative Image of lush urban greenery shading a busy street in Singapore (AI-generated image) As cities across the tropics search for ways to cope with rising temperatures, Singapore has increasingly turned to a familiar, low-tech solution: trees. A specific figure keeps surfacing in planning documents and public discussion: the claim that shading a street with…