In today’s Good News, birdwatchers now have an exciting new route to follow for their hobby, thanks to a collaboration between five countries in southern Africa. And in Oklahoma, an Indigenous tribe took back control over their land and transformed the contaminated soil into fertile earth for crops.

Catherine Garcia
The Week Digital

Australian scientists have created what they say is the first early-stage quantum battery, which charges wirelessly with a laser. Until now, quantum batteries have been a “theoretical concept” to use the “principles of quantum mechanics to store energy,” said The Guardian. The prototype completed a full battery cycle and held the charge for a few nanoseconds, but researchers aim to increase storage time and develop quantum batteries that “charge almost instantaneously” and can power small electronic devices.

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A pay phone outside Pavement Coffeehouse in Brookline, Massachusetts, links Gen Z and Boomers, aiming to combat loneliness in both groups. Stickers on the booth say “Call a Boomer,” and the phone only connects to a senior community in Reno, Nevada — their phone booth’s stickers say “Call a Zoomer.” Some participants ask for advice, while others want to talk about books or the weather. “It’s just simple connection,” caller Mark Krone told WCVB. “It’s just two people.”

DNA from a distance

The Quapaw Nation transformed 200 acres of toxic grassland in northeastern Oklahoma into an area where cattle graze and crops grow. The tribe is the first in the U.S. to “manage and carry out a Superfund cleanup,” said The Guardian. The Quapaw spent decades using mushroom compost to restore soil that had been contaminated by water runoff from a lead and zinc mine and clearing away toxic chat piles, returning the land to agricultural use.

A new birding trail that connects Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe gives birdwatchers the chance to pass through 36 protected areas and spot more than 600 local and migratory species. The Great Kavango Zambezi Birding Route follows the Zambezi, Chobe, Kwando, Kavango and Kafue Rivers and traverses 12 birding zones, through ecosystems “ranging from dry desert to lush forest and wetlands,” said Good News Network. Government officials are excited that the multinational collaboration will put southern Africa on the “global birding map.”

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