In a region like Sacramento, where the grid strains under demand and droughts loom, some critics see data centers as hulking, water-hogging threats to local communities.

For many, plant-based proteins leave a bad taste in the mouth: bitter and “beany,” according to Vanessa Small. At her food tech startup Alcheme Bio, she strips that tart taste at the cellular level to enhance flavoring.

Through January, the only state-run monarch preserve in California becomes a magical stop for the overwintering western monarch butterflies.

Nearly a decade ago, researchers issued a grim prediction: By 2050, plastic in the ocean would outweigh all the fish. Now, just 25 years away from that deadline, a tech startup named after sea nymphs in Greek mythology is turning the tide on the ocean’s plastic waste.

Water policy in California is defined by fighting. Plans to fix the system languish for decades, and if they’re implemented, they end up in court for many more years. The Floodplain Forward Coalition has broken out of that paradigm.

Ming Luong started Ming’s Recycling in 1987, less than a decade after the Luong family arrived in the U.S. They were among the millions of people who fled Vietnam following the fall of Saigon, riding a fishing boat to a refugee camp in Malaysia before a church group sponsored their relocation to Laramie, Wyoming.