A strange nightly chill on fruit depots in eastern Thailand has led to the discovery of a hidden cooling network already serving 29 warehouses. Its roof panels have cut electricity use by nearly a third, creating a multimillion-baht business built around an effect that staff could not explain.
A law taking effect today has set Southland on course for a regional-power ballot after officials accepted a petition far larger than the required threshold. The vote is non-binding, but its result could force Wellington into a politically explosive debate over who controls the region’s resources and services.
A late-night channel change by a Lviv shopkeeper helped lift a little-known Ukrainian drama about two towns sharing scarce electricity into one of the country’s most watched new series. Its producers say the surprise success has changed how they plan their next season.
A nightly surge of phantom mobile devices in Saudi Arabia’s empty desert has thrown a multibillion-euro AI acquisition into doubt. The apparent traffic came from a startup’s own simulations, which its customers say were labelled as real network activity.
A discount chain’s first Dhaka stores opened with tills charging more than shelf labels promised; suppliers now say the company also withheld millions of taka in fees. Consumer officials are checking the price claims as the retailer pauses its expansion.
A compact satellite terminal tested on a Manitoba winter road became an online sensation, drawing customers to its Winnipeg maker. The viral clip helped open talks with a Turkish space agency, though a potential C$42 million supply agreement still depends on trials and future orders.
A new scientific paper says a cyclone-driven flood scenario used in coastal engineering plans could put tens of thousands of people in eastern Singapore at risk. The same height appears in design calculations but not on the city’s public hazard map, the researchers say.
A suit filed in Nairobi accuses a data firm of building political risk scores from millions of Kenyan social-media profiles, with labels that could shape how campaigns treat whole communities. Experts say the case may test whether privacy protections can keep pace with election technology before voting begins next year.
A Dutch kidney-exchange service operating on an unlikely internet address helped coordinate 214 transplants in 18 months, an audit announced on Sunday found. The results are being hailed as a breakthrough for patients whose willing donors were medically incompatible with them.
A passenger ferry ran aground in the Bali Strait after its navigation chart placed a shallow bank 1.4 km (0.9 miles) from its actual position, a technical review has concluded. The vessel’s 143 passengers were transferred to other boats; no one was injured.
A government audit says large areas of Ukrainian peatland listed as restored are still drained, forcing an urgent rewrite of the country’s carbon estimates. Researchers warn that the error could conceal millions of tonnes of annual emissions and raise the risk of destructive summer fires.
A routine repair in Morocco’s Fes medina has uncovered a hidden network of clay air channels that cooled a house without electricity for centuries. Early measurements suggest the system can still cut indoor temperatures by more than 10°C (18°F) during summer heat.