there’s hope

Researcher Announces a Tattoo Removal Cream Is In the Works

The thing about tattoos is they’re inked on your skin for life, unless you want to undergo an expensive, time-consuming, and potentially scarring laser-removal process. But now, a tattoo-removal cream could be the destroyer of a thousand unwanted lower-back butterflies and a saving grace for their owners. Alex Falkenham, a pathology researcher at Dalhousie University…

Two groups of healthy green sea turtles are thriving off the coast of Peru. This is hopeful news, as these turtles are part of an endangered group and their numbers were shrinking. It seems that protecting their habitats has worked, and their populations are growing again.

The Lick Observatory Has Been Saved!

It’s the world’s oldest mountaintop observatory, but Lick Observatory was about to shut down due to lack of money. The venerable facility was about to close forever. But then it was saved at the last minute, thanks entirely to public funding. Sometimes we can have nice things.

A Single Breakthrough That Could Cut Costs on Solar Energy by 25%

Costs on solar are coming down steeply, and now they’re about to get even cheaper. A group of chemists at Ohio State University has invented a solar panel that stores energy without an external battery. The self-contained tuner/capacitor panels are already being licensed to industry. Above, you can see a scanning electron microscope image of…

You Want More Diversity in Your Pop Culture? Here’s How to Find It

Many fans are demanding more diversity in comics, movies and TV. What you may not realize is that there’s already a community of creators producing stories about diverse characters. Now is a great time to get into their work. Illustration from the cover of The Agenda “Many of the people who have been calling for…

The only way to save the incredible monarch butterfly is if three nations cooperate. And now, it looks like this just might be happening. It’s cause for cautious optimism.

Ready to Move Animals Around the Planet for “Aggressive Conservation”?

This week a new paper revealed that humans have caused 322 animal extinctions over the past few centuries, and these numbers are alarming. But we can prevent more, using a tactic that some are calling “aggressive conservation.” https://gizmodo.com/humans-have-caused-322-animal-extinctions-in-the-past-5-1610770918 In the photo above, the National Parks Service uses a helicopter to move a tranquilized grizzly bear.…

What Kinds of Stories Would You Like to See on io9?

You come to io9 for a lot of reasons. You want to escape with science fiction and fantasy, but you also want to learn about what’s possible in the real world using science and technology. You want to know what’s coming next, and what it will take to get there. What other stories do you…

A charitable foundation has just donated $650 million to the Broad Institute, earmarked for psychiatric research. It is the largest such donation ever made, and is welcome in an era when we’re seeing a decline in funding for the study of mental illness.

Three Ways to Reduce the Ocean’s Garbage Gyres (And One Way Not To)

You’ve heard about the ocean’s garbage patches, swirling with tiny pieces of plastic. Now there are several organizations and inventors working on cheap, simple ways to reduce ocean garbage — and some of them are already working. Photo of inner harbor water wheel by Andrew Thaler. Over at Deep Sea News, Kim Martini has a…

This Isn’t a Utopian Vision — It’s Actually What London Is Like Today

There’s a common sense idea that cities are the opposite of nature. And yet if you look at this visualization of green space and gardens in London, what you’ll find is that this giant metropolis contains more plants and wildlife than buildings. This image is part of a campaign to turn London into a “National…

First Wild Beaver Seen in England for 800 Years

This video is proof that a beaver is alive and well in England, centuries after they were believed to have gone extinct in that country. No one is sure how it got there, but it’s munching on trees in Devon. According to Scientific American’s John Platt, beavers are a success story in the annals of…

A Little Girl Watches Her Mom Make History

Pictured here: Kristin Fisher, daughter of astronauts Anna Fisher and William Fisher, hanging out in mission control during her mom’s 1984 flight aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. Fisher the younger was just 15 months old when her mom became the first mom in space. [Kristin Fisher via The Mary Sue]

I dare you to watch this Batkid film and not cheer, cry or applaud

We’ve told you plenty about Miles, a.k.a. Batkid, the amazing 5-year-old who, despite battling cancer since he was only two, saved San Francisco last November. Now you can watch his superheroic exploits in this 10-minute video, which will not only yank violently on your heartstring, but probably renew your faith in humanity. Admittedly, Batkid did…

How a car mechanic’s invention could save thousands of women’s lives

An Argentine car mechanic named Jorge Odón has used a plastic bag as the centerpiece of a simple device that has the potential to save the lives of women whose babies have gotten stuck in the birth canal during labor. What’s incredible is that it’s taken this long for doctors to move beyond using often-deadly…

People are building enormous farms in the ruins of Detroit

Detroit isn’t a decaying city anymore — it’s a city in transition. Though its population dropped by 50 percent in the past half-century, and roughly a third of its buildings are abandoned, the place is coming to life again. Farmers are taking over the industrial wastes. According to Next Nature: Local businessman John Hantz just…

Behold the incredible, gorgeous future of energy production

You’re looking at an astonishingly huge and gorgeous solar energy plant that’s being built by Brightsource Energy, an American firm, in the Negev desert. It looks like something out of Star Trek, but it’s actually from Earth’s near future. According to Inhabitat: The Ashalim power plant will be located in the Negev desert near Kibbutz…

A stunning example of nature’s resilience

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens is regarded as the deadliest and most destructive volcanic blast in U.S. history. And yet, just thirty-three years later, life has returned to the area in almost equally impressive force, as newly released photographs illustrate. Above: ASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using Landsat…

The EU on track to meet its 2020 climate goals

A recent report from the European Environment Agency, a watchdog group, confirms that several countries are making good on their promises to reduce emissions and switch over to green energy. The AFP reports: By the end of 2012, the EU had reduced its output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by nearly 18 percent compared to the…

Here’s an incredible statistic that will give you hope for the future

Deforestation is causing some of the world’s worst environmental problems. So it may shock you to discover that deforestation in Brazil, one of the worst-hit regions, has dropped by 80% in the past 8 years. Photo via NASA This week, the Economist has a big package of stories devoted to how economic growth and environmental…