Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, now hosts the archipelago’s first cooperatively managed solar microgrid — a network of photovoltaic panels and battery storage units that will use renewable energy to keep the lights on and power flowing during a power outage. The system includes some 700 panels mounted on seven buildings in the town’s central plaza and a battery storage system capable of providing up to 187 kilowatts of power.

Regulatory action to phase out the use and production of dangerous insecticides has been a boon to public health. According to new research published last month, the atmospheric concentrations of three insecticides near the Great Lakes have fallen so low that researchers can’t even quantify them anymore. Lindane, alpha-HCH, and endosulfan “are well on their way to being virtually eliminated,” the paper says.