In 1925, a Kansas farm boy built his own telescope from scratch. Five years later, his homemade astronomy led him to discover Pluto |

Long before Clyde Tombaugh was searching the skies from an observatory in Arizona, he was a farm boy trying to make sense of the night above his family’s home. The first telescope he owned was bought from Sears, but it soon failed to satisfy him. By 1925, he was building his own instruments, with help […]

Laurene Powell Jobs left Wall Street and moved to Florence for eight months, then built a multibillion-dollar empire funding education, climate and social change | World News

Laurene Powell Jobs took an unconventional route from Wall Street to becoming one of the most influential philanthropists and investors in the United States. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, she spent a year at Merrill Lynch and two years at Goldman Sachs before leaving finance and moving to Florence, Italy, where […]

‘This well is not to be built over’: A California ranch was warned 20 years ago; young teens are now suffering from a rare cancer

Children and teens in Ladera Ranch, California, are getting a rare bone cancer at a higher rate than the national average. (Photo: LA Times) Ladera Ranch is a 4,000-acre planned community in southern Orange County, California. As per the 2020 census, this ranch had a population of 26,170. The residents of the ranch have now […]

Wind turbine blades are built to survive decades and are difficult to recycle; an Iowa plant mechanically shreds them into fibres and powders for concrete, mortar and asphalt

The recycling process begins with extracting reusable components from the blades.(Representational photo, Getty images) Wind turbine blades can last for years, but what happens to them after they are no longer needed is a challenge. A facility in Fairfax, Iowa, USA, is now recycling old wind turbine blades and turning their materials into products that […]

A Mexican entrepreneur began melting discarded plastic into wall and roof panels; within three years his startup had built 500 rooms and secured contracts for 300 homes

An entrepreneur began melting discarded plastic into walls Workers at a recycling plant in central Mexico are turning five and a half tonnes of discarded plastic bottles and old toys every day into strong building materials, helping low-income families get better homes while keeping waste out of local dumps. The process, developed in 2013 by […]

In 2002, Alabama architecture students stacked 72,000 worn carpet tiles into the walls of a family home; Rural Studio has now built more than 200 projects

A house in Alabama contains walls adorned with 72,000 individual stacked tiles held in compression by a heavy wooden-ring beam. Belonging to the Harris family, the abode contains a bedroom above and a tornado shelter below. The minds behind the idea trace back to Rural Studio, an off-campus design-build program, rooted in Hale County and […]