Deserts and dollars: Where news gathering, and fossils, need support
Local news mapping clarifies where Americans get information
Researchers are creating interactive maps where news outlets are thriving, as well as where coverage is missing.
At Washington State University, a state legislative effort to support local news is funding a database of news outlets. Several other universities and nonprofits charted local news from New Jersey to Colorado to Oregon.
Why We Wrote This
In our progress roundup, understanding where communities are lacking local news coverage may help funders target money effectively. And in another kind of desert, the Tatacoa in Colombia, two bare-bones museums hold a mother lode of 10 million-year-old fossils for study.
The research is evolving to accommodate the shrinking of local journalism. Papers have vanished at a clip of roughly 2.5 per week, according to the latest study from Northwestern University.
Melissa Milios Davis, network manager for the nationwide philanthropic initiative Press Forward, said, “Seeing all of this useful information in one place – even with layers of data on socioeconomic and civic engagement data – helps target philanthropic dollars in the communities and contexts that need it most.”
Sources: The Conversation, Northwestern University
Amateur paleontologists in Colombia draw global attention
In the 1990s, foreign scientists stopped studying in central Colombia as armed conflict worsened. But three local men kept collecting, and today the Tatacoa Natural History Museum and the museum La Tormenta are both keepers of heritage and centers for the study of the Middle Miocene Epoch.
Once the site of rivers, swamps, and lush forests, the region morphed into a desert 10 million years ago. The Tatacoa Desert holds some 30,000 fossils – from ancient dolphins to crocodiles to bats.
César Perdomo, who runs La Tormenta, recently co-authored a paper on what’s believed to be a fossil of the largest terror bird ever found. The large, flightless birds once roamed South America and migrated to North America. Scientists say that the region is important to understanding how environmental change affects evolution.
Sources: The New York Times, El Páis, Papers in Palaeontology
EU court removes gender identity from rail tickets in France
In a decision that is binding across the EU, private and public organizations cannot require customers’ gender information unless necessary for providing service.
The original complaint, brought by 64 plaintiffs, argued that ticking off a box for “monsieur” or “madame” discriminated against nonbinary people and violated the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation’s principle of “data minimization.”
Across the EU, only Malta, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark formally recognize nonbinary identities. The case is the first at the EU level to address nonbinary identification rights.
Source: Context
Electric trucks curb food waste and boost farmers in Rwanda
Farmers often lose harvests to spoilage and long road trips to market. About 40% of the country’s food production is wasted annually, with polluting diesel trucks used for transport.
Since 2021, a purpose-designed truck made of easily assembled parts has offered farmers an affordable, eco-friendly way to move their products. The startup Ox Delivers says the off-road vehicles can be 10 times cheaper to use than alternatives, and can be fitted with refrigeration. Farmers rent only the space they need rather than the entire truck. One farmer said that he has given up a two-day, bicycle-bus-motorbike journey and gone from selling 880 pounds of chile peppers weekly to 8,800 pounds since using the truck service.
The fleet must rely on its own charging stations, but a 2024 U.K. Energy Catalyst grant and a new contract to expand to four East African countries are expected to extend services beyond the company’s 5,000 clients.
Sources: Reasons To Be Cheerful, World Resources Institute
In Seoul, a highway is turned back into a flowing waterway
Cheonggyecheon is an example of the paradigm shift toward human-centered urban planning worldwide. A 20-year-old cultural corridor that hosts festivals and performances, the urban stream was one of the earliest experiments in turning car or rail infrastructure into spaces for pedestrians and cyclists.
Studies from the Seoul Institute found the area around the stream is now 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than nearby streets. The removal of the highway resulted in less air pollution and created new wind paths, improving air circulation. While the stream requires about $2 million in annual maintenance to keep the water flowing, it also helps manage increasingly intense monsoon floods.
Since the project’s success, the city has removed 16 other elevated highways, many replaced by public spaces or wider pavements.
Source: The Guardian
