U.K.
A clinical trial investigating a treatment for blindness is under way this winter to evaluate the safety and efficacy of replacing diseased eye cells with stem cells.
U.S.
Following a federal court hearing, the U.S. Navy has agreed to limit its use of sonar in specified areas around the Hawaiian Islands and southern California. Sonar activity has been shown to harm marine animals.
NETHERLANDS
Delta Flume, a facility that produces the world's largest man-made waves to study and improve coastal protection systems, opened in Delft. Waves reach as high as 4.5 meters.
NORWAY
After a local seed bank in Syria was damaged in the country's civil war, researchers have made the first-ever withdrawal from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The master vault holds more than 860,000 seed samples collected from around the world in an effort to ensure against their loss in the wild. The replacement seeds will be stored in Lebanon and Morocco.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Biologists captured underwater footage of a glow-in-the-dark sea turtle, the first reptile known to exhibit biofluorescence.
AUSTRALIA
The government approved a new curriculum for elementary school students, who will now learn computer coding and programming.*
*Editor's Note (11/23/15): This sentence from the print article was edited after it was posted online. The original had erroneously stated the new curriculum will replace history and geography with computer coding. Those subjects will still be taught, although within a new single humanities and social sciences subject.
