In Squirrel News today, a tiny eye implant helps patients with advanced macular degeneration read again, ‘restaurants solidaire’ in Marseille are making gourmet food accessible to those on a tight budget, and a wide-reaching study shows the change in recommendations for avoiding peanut allergies has paid off.
Researchers in Bonn, Germany, have developed augmented glasses that work with a tiny implanted eye chip. In trial, these helped 80% of patients with age-related, late-stage macular degeneration make meaningful improvements in vision. One patient said she was now able to do crosswords and read prescriptions.
Thousands of years of migration have left Marseille, France, diverse and tolerant. Now a new movement of ‘restaurants solidaire’ is giving a hand up to those with less to spend. Some partner with charities to offer meals for as low as €1; others operate on the honour system to give a deep discount to those who need one.
Results are in of a massive, long-term study on the new advice of the last decade that parents feed small amounts of peanuts to babies to prevent severe peanut allergies. They indicate that peanut allergies have plummeted, with 60,000 fewer children affected than would otherwise have been.
From wind corridors that channel cool air down into from meadows and orchards outside city limits in Stuttgart to buildings in Singapore designed and orientated to creatively let cool breezes travel though. BBC journalists from People Fixing the World visit cities that are finding solutions to urban heat using wind.
A feature at the Venice 2025 Architecture Biennial is a pedestrian bridge made of a new kind of concrete that uses less energy to produce, reduces construction time, and absorbs much more carbon than normal concrete. The designers were inspired by the porous, yet structurally sound, nature of human bones.
Farmers Marco Aceituno and Macarena Valdes founded La Pachamama, a farm in a drought-ridden area of the Chilean Coast that has become a model of sustainability. The farm runs well, powered entirely by vegetable waste and sheep excrement.
Once hunted to the brink of extinction, the ‘right’ whale now numbers 384, up eight from last year. They are one of the rarest, vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear. Experts say the success of conservation measures is encouraging, considering the population shrank 25% between 2010 and 2020.
Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel, Demon Copperhead, tells a painful story of lives affected by opioid addiction in Appalachia, an area devastated by the US opioid crisis. She used the royalties from it to open a new kind of addiction recovery programme that is helping women get back on their feet.
In Mbale, coffee has long been a male-dominated business, with women doing the labour of growing and men controlling the income from selling. Now Meridah Nandudu is shifting the balance for 600 women coffee growers in her village, buying their beans directly and giving them the chance of decision-making in their daily lives.
An open prison where prisoners care for animals and vineyards while earning a standard wage, Gorgona Island is a stark contrast to other Italian prisons. There is mutual trust between prisoners and guards, freedom of movement in the day, a chance to learn a skill, and a very low rate of recidivism.
