Nonprofit funds a way for high schoolers to skip a year of college

Good News Notes: “Pursuing a college education can be an expensive ordeal, but one big nonprofit is hoping to address the issue of affordability by helping high school students gain college credits at very low costs even before they graduate. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation earlier this week launched a series of grants to boost schools’…

Mass Production of Recyclable Bioplastics Possible with Cellulose

Good News Notes: “The accumulation of synthetic polyester on the planet has posed a danger to the ecology. Because of its advantageous recyclability, optical clarity, and availability of resources, cellulose film has recently become one of the most appealing alternatives to displace petroleum-based polymers. The typical methodologies for fabricating cellulose films, such as vacuum filtering…

Jane Fonda pays for Boise students to study climate change

Good News Notes: “Earlier this summer, Shiva Rajbhandari got an unknown call from Georgia. It’s not a call he’d normally pick up, he said, figuring it was spam. But this time he answered. On the other end, Rajbhandari said, a woman introduced herself: “Hi, this is Jane Fonda,” she said. Several weeks earlier, Rajbhandari, a…

This startup uses the cooling towers on buildings as carbon capture devices

Good News Notes: “On top of a nondescript industrial building in the Bay Area city of San Leandro, a company is pioneering a new way to fight climate change: Hacking a cooling tower—the equipment used for air conditioning in large buildings—to help pull CO2 from the atmosphere. So-called direct air capture machines are already in use elsewhere….