







Ancient rivers once nourished and protected the lands where we built our biggest cities. Now, they’re buried underground. Is it finally time to let them see daylight?
The Case for Filling in Lake Merritt
After a century of short-sighted city-building, is this our best bet?

Chinese dams hold billions of people to ransom
Could desalination make them irrelevant?

Ancient lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert
A remarkably well preserved 1,600-year-old city complete with a church, watchtowers and bustling streets has been unearthed beneath Egypt's Western Desert.

The Narwhal (@thenarwhal.ca)
Our pod of investigative journalists dives deep to tell stories about the natural world in Canada you can’t find anywhere else. Sign up for our newsletter: http://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter
On whose land?
I am once again asking Canadian journalists to ask the most basic-ass question of on whose land will these be built? How is it that every other major industry must consider Indigenous rights but with tech it's like meh.

How data centres are draining water and energy from the Global South
The story started in Georgia, US—not with a law being broken in some faraway place, but with residents noticing something wrong in their own homes: the water pressure kept dropping unusually.

A data center drained 30M gallons of water unnoticed — until residents complained about low water pressure
Residents in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed low water pressure last year. The utility discovered two unaccounted-for water connections at one of the nation’s largest data center campuses.
A data center drained 30M gallons of water unnoticed — until residents complained about low water pressure
Residents in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed low water pressure last year. The utility discovered two unaccounted-for water connections at one of the nation’s largest data center campuses.

Archaeologists uncover ancient Byzantine city in Egypt’s western desert
Well-preserved fourth-century quarters reveal details of daily life, urban development and economic activities

Network science reveals the structure and lasting impact of the Roman road system
Ancient infrastructure can leave lasting imprints on modern settlement patterns and mobility. The Roman road network connected vast regions of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and is often mentioned as an example of such long-term impact. Yet its structural characteristics remain largely unquantified. Here we present a high spatial resolution quantitative exploratory analysis of the Roman Empire’s road system, enabled by our creation of a spatially detailed Empire-wide dataset. We address long-standing questions concerning the straightness and persistence of these roads, and the centrality of cities like Rome. We show that Roman roads tend to be straight where topography allows but less so than modern roads; provincial capitals were more centrally located than other cities for mediating terrestrial mobility; segments hypothesised to be main roads were more important intermediaries than secondary roads; and Roman road density correlates with major modern roads.

Dam Removals Are Bringing Fish Back Across the Northeastern United States, Striking Down One Tiny Barrier at a Time
While the demolition of big dams in the West gets more attention, many of these often-obsolete obstructions are also coming out of northeastern streams and rivers—and herring are returning in droves
Plan Your Next Getaway to These Texas Waterfalls
Ditch the country roads and cattle for these swimming holes.

Solve Canada — the civic reporting layer for Canadian cities
Solve Canada is the reporting layer underneath Toronto, Mississauga, Milton, Kitchener, and Waterloo. A resident reports a street problem by photo, it reaches the right city desk, and they hear back when it is fixed.

AI Aqueducts: Speed. Confidence. And Contaminants.
The AI Pipeline Has No Way to Judge the Science It Uses
