海角大神

A week of political fireworks in the US (we鈥檙e watching the government-shutdown saga) also featured the flares of some coldly ambitious tech.

Humanity might have seen the world鈥檚 鈥� missions both national and private 鈥� had a bunch of them not fizzled. There was a at autonomous cars, and the temporary shutdown of London鈥檚 Gatwick Airport .

Hands-on human innovation today extends even to the natural-sounding realm of islands. Most recently in the news because of the by rising seas, they鈥檝e also popped up 鈥� in artificial form 鈥� as territorial markers (think in the South China Sea).

But it鈥檚 not all competitive human calculus.

In the Netherlands, a handful of built islets have emerged in a massive freshwater lake, part of a very Dutch effort that鈥檚 now paying environmental dividends according to .

Construction involved silt, not just sand, and in only 2-1/2 years the islets have provided a foothold for nearly 130 plant types, their seeds borne in by the wind. Tens of thousands of swallows have also arrived. Most important, an 鈥渆xplosion鈥� of life-sustaining plankton is reviving the once-dead lake.

聽Says one ranger of the high-tech rewilding effort, 鈥淲e had to intervene.鈥�

Now to our five stories for today, including a look at the deployment of babies against bullies, and, as we enter the Northern Hemisphere鈥檚 longest night, a science writer鈥檚 celebration of cosmic darkness.