Dingoes, wedge-tailed eagles, and frogs, live from a remote Australian desert

Happy Friday. A four-person team hiked solar panels and cameras into a remote waterhole in the Australian outback so the rest of the world could watch what happens there. Dingoes. Wedge-tailed eagles. Frogs after dark. That's today's lead story.

We also have bikes outnumbering cars on an Edinburgh rush-hour route for the first time in history, a 150-year-old Portuguese cork company that's now insulating spacecraft for NASA and the ESA, and Amazon leading a $20 million corporate push to fix irrigation leaks along the Colorado River.

Have a great weekend.

—Stephanie S

Watarrka National Park sits in the red heart of Central Australia, 350 kilometers southwest of Alice Springs near Kings Canyon. The waterholes of the park are among the only reliable sources of water in one of the world's most unpredictable rainfall regions, making them gathering points for everything that lives in the surrounding desert. Until recently, witnessing what actually happens at one of them would have required a journey most people will never make.

A four-person team from Charles Darwin University's Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods and NT Parks and Wildlife carried solar panels, cameras, and communications equipment to a pool on the Watarrka escarpment and installed a continuous livestream. Dingoes in golden, black, and white-and-tan coats come to drink — sometimes alone, sometimes in a mob. Wedge-tailed eagles dip their beaks. Wallabies move through the rocks. After dark, resident frogs announce themselves by their eyeshine.

Professor Jenny Davis, a freshwater ecologist who has studied Watarrka's waterholes since 1986, said recent advances in technology finally made continuous streaming possible from such a remote site. The accompanying website logs every movement that triggers the camera, with timestamps viewers can click to find specific animals. "This live stream allows people to experience some of our wildlife," said NT Parks and Wildlife Senior District Ranger Di Bowman, "and gain an appreciation of life in the Outback, all from the comfort of home."

A combination of segregated bike lanes and an e-bike rental program has transformed cycling in Edinburgh to the point that, during a May morning rush hour, more bikes than cars passed through Leith Walk between 8 and 9 a.m. — a first in recorded history for any major Scottish urban route. Leith Walk is one of Edinburgh's longest and most-traveled streets, running from the city center toward the port district, lined with shops and dense foot traffic.

The data came from a 48-hour nationwide traffic survey across urban Scotland conducted in mid-May by the cycling charity Cycling Scotland. Bicycle journeys totaled 67,000 across those two days, up 25% year-over-year, with the e-bike rental program — which has logged 1.46 million trips since its launch last September — accounting for the majority of the increase. Glasgow also recorded more bike journeys than ever before on multiple roads.

"I've found that cycling is much quicker than driving," said Kirsty Milton-Moir, an NHS health visitor who now uses the cycle lanes to reach families across Glasgow. "It gives you the headspace you need." Scottish authorities have an additional $280 million in infrastructure and mobility projects still in the works.

This weekend, more than 100,000 changemakers pour into New York for UN Climate Week. The Transformative Impact Summit — often called "the TED of Impact" — brings together the world's boldest problem-solvers to share what's actually working across clean energy, regenerative farming, ethical tech, and purpose-driven business. Past summits have launched new organizations and funded speakers on the spot.

GNN's own Stephanie Sharis takes the stage Sunday at 12:15 PM to talk about why good news catalyzes real action and impact. Every session livestreams completely free — no ticket, no travel, no badge required. One idea from one session could spark something that changes everything.

RSVP here for the free Sunday livestream.

Cork oak trees at Herdade Rio Frio in Portugal grow in the hot, dry Mediterranean climate and can produce harvestable bark for up to 200 years. Each tree is harvested nine times over its life, and Corticeira Amorim has been doing this since the time of the Portuguese monarchy. The company now employs 4,000 people and generates roughly €1 billion in annual revenue — but what it makes has changed dramatically.

The cork from its trees goes into 30 different products, most bearing no resemblance to a wine bottle stopper. Corticeira Amorim's cork lined the thermal heat shield of the European Space Agency's IXV re-entry spacecraft, and aerospace applications for NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX followed. Their cork-concrete solution was used in the Lisbon Cruise Terminal. Real Madrid trains on their cork turf fields, which produce 40% fewer injuries than conventional rubber. They have even developed a 3D-printer-compatible cork material.

The Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people and more than 5 million acres of farmland across seven US states and Mexico. Twenty-five years of drought have reduced its annual flow by 20%, and its two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are both below 30% capacity. Amazon has now announced a $20 million investment to help, launching the Colorado River Basin Collaborative alongside the existing Water Resilience Coalition and The Climate Pledge.

The initiative funds practical, unglamorous fixes: irrigation efficiency upgrades, canal lining to reduce seepage, urban leak detection and repair, and groundwater recharge. The first project commits $2.2 million over three years to the Municipal Water District of Orange County, which serves 3.2 million residents, expanding leak detection to communities that lack the resources to conduct this work on their own. A second project uses AWS-powered sensors to give tribal farmers in the Lower Colorado River Basin real-time data on when their crops actually need water.

The initiative has already secured more than $33 million in total corporate commitments and has set an eventual target of $100 million. "The Colorado River Basin is one of the most important watersheds in North America," said Matt Kistler, CEO of the Water Resilience Coalition, "and its future depends on collaboration at scale."

🦌 USA: North America's largest wildlife overpass — a 200-foot-wide bridge over Interstate 25 in Colorado built for elk, pronghorn, and deer — has reduced animal-vehicle collisions along the corridor by 91% in its first nine months, with elk herds and pronghorn crossing regularly for the first time in decades.

🐢 Ecuador: In February 2026, 158 juvenile giant tortoises were released on Floreana Island in the Galápagos for the first time in more than 150 years, after scientists discovered surviving descendants on another island and spent two decades breeding them back toward their original lineage.

🦝 USA: At Woodside Wildlife Rescue in Pass Christian, Mississippi, orphaned baby raccoons attend a six-month "boot camp" where staff teach them to dig for worms, fish in pools, and swim — ending with a graduation ceremony where "Pomp and Circumstance" plays and each raccoon's name is read aloud.

🐴 Kazakhstan: Wild Przewalski's horses — the world's last truly wild horse species — have been born in Kazakhstan for the first time in 200 years, after Czech and German zoos transported breeding pairs to the Altyn Dala grasslands as part of a multinational reintroduction effort.

🧠 Global: Scientists have found that removing brain immune cells in Alzheimer's mice restored more than two hours of lost sleep per night — even without clearing amyloid plaques — suggesting that the inflammatory response to plaques may be a separate, potentially reversible cause of sleep disruption. ScienceDaily, July 2026.

On September 25, 1976, a 14-year-old student named Larry Mullen Jr. pinned a note to the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin looking for musicians to join a new band. Six people responded. Setting up in his kitchen, Mullen was on drums, Paul Hewson — who would become Bono — on vocals, David Evans — the Edge — on guitar, and Adam Clayton on bass. The popularity of punk rock, their biggest influence at the time, had convinced them that technical proficiency was not a prerequisite to getting started.

The band that emerged became one of the best-selling music acts in history, with more than 170 million records sold across five decades. They have won more Grammy Awards than any other band. But on September 25, 1976, they were just four teenagers in a kitchen in Dublin who had answered a handwritten note.

Other notable September 25 events:

1890: Sequoia National Park was established, 136 years ago today, home to General Sherman — the world's largest tree by wood volume at 2,100 years old, 275 feet tall, and 2.7 million pounds — first managed by the Buffalo Soldiers, the segregated African-American regiment who helped define what a park ranger does.

1957: The Little Rock Nine entered Central High School in Arkansas, 69 years ago today, escorted by 300 US Army soldiers after President Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne Division to enforce school integration over the resistance of the state governor and an unruly crowd of 1,000.

1992: A Florida judge ruled in favor of 12-year-old Gregory Kingsley's right to legally separate from his biological parents, 34 years ago today, in what was widely called the first successful case of its kind in American legal history.

— Paulo Coelho

Every day brings amazing advances and uplifting moments that remind us just how wonderful the world can be. Here are five reasons why today is the best time ever to be alive:

🧬 Reading the Story Inside Every Cell: Scientists can now sequence the RNA of individual cells one at a time, revealing the complete gene expression profile of each cell in a tissue sample and unlocking entirely new understanding of how tumors evolve, how embryos develop, and how diseases change over time. Every tissue contains millions of individual stories that we are only now learning to read.

🔭 Three Days Warning Before a Solar Storm: A network of satellites positioned between the Earth and the Sun now gives forecasters up to three days of advance warning before solar storms reach Earth, protecting power grids, satellite networks, and communications systems from the kind of geomagnetic disruption that once knocked out entire electrical grids without notice. The 1989 Quebec blackout lasted nine hours; today, we would see it coming.

🌱 Locking Carbon in the Ground for Centuries: Converting agricultural and forestry waste into biochar — a stable form of carbon made by burning organic matter at low oxygen — and burying it in soil locks carbon away for hundreds to thousands of years while simultaneously improving soil fertility and water retention. It is one of the few carbon removal methods that makes farmland more productive while making the atmosphere cleaner.

🔬 A Lab Test That Fits on Your Wrist: Scientists are developing wearable patches that continuously monitor dozens of biomarkers in sweat and interstitial fluid in real time — glucose, cortisol, lactate, inflammatory markers — without a single needle. Truly continuous personal health monitoring, worn like a bandage, is closer than most people realize.

💡 Machines That Undo Old Pollution: Direct air capture facilities use chemical sorbents and fans to pull CO2 directly from the atmosphere, concentrating it into pure streams that can be stored underground permanently or used to make synthetic fuels. Unlike most climate solutions, direct air capture can remove historical emissions from anywhere, not just prevent new ones.

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