Constructive Information’ most learn tales of 2025

It’s all the time those you least count on. Proving that potholes stir ardour was this piece about a self-healing street floor impressed by nature. The asphalt accommodates plant-based spores which are full of recycled oils. When the street is compressed, the oils seep out, sealing fractures. Cyclists and motorists rejoice.

Whereas the world’s speedy embrace of renewables is a trigger for celebration, it poses a thorny query: what to do with all of the generators once they attain the top of their working lives? The Swedish vitality firm Vattenfall posited a sublime answer: repurpose them as tiny properties. It’s a nifty concept that additionally addresses the housing disaster.

A comeback story with a ripple impact. As many readers will know, the return of keynote species to ecosystems often brings different advantages. This was demonstrated by Yellowstone nationwide park this yr the place a placing ecological restoration is underway due to the return of one of many US’s most iconic species, the bison.

Residence Kitchen, one among London’s buzziest new eating places, appears to be like like most different superb eating institutions at first look. However there’s extra to this place than meets the attention, as Constructive Information reported in February. Not solely is the restaurant run not-for-profit, however almost all the employees members have skilled homelessness: a primary of its form within the fine-dining business.

Sticking with London, the English capital unveiled a placing new statue celebrating the unseen energy of moms in 2025. Animals are twice as more likely to be immortalised in bronze as girls within the English capital – the brand new statue challenges that invisibility. “Motherhood is directly on a regular basis and extraordinary,” stated Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark, its creator. “By honouring the postpartum physique, we’re recognising the braveness of ladies in every single place.”

For nearly 20 years, Nigel Bromage was a number one member of the British far proper, occurring to hitch the overtly neo-Nazi organisation Fight 18. After renouncing his hate-filled previous, he fashioned Small Steps, an organisation made up of fellow reformed neo-Nazis, to try to stop others following an identical route. His story resonated because the far proper went on the march.

The distraction machine also referred to as the web does its greatest to pull us into the digital ether, a world of infinite scrolling. All of us succumb to it. However it doesn’t should be this fashion, as Jodie Jackson, a specialist in the best way the mind kinds habits, wrote for us.

Talking of taking over the tech giants, our report on the Smartphone Free Childhood motion obtained an enormous response from readers. The marketing campaign was launched, paradoxically, after an Instagram submit by former Constructive Information editor Daisy Greenwell went viral. It comes as extra international locations are calling time on smartphones in class, with some encouraging outcomes.

“You possibly can’t dissipate creativity. The extra you utilize, the extra you might have,” stated the author, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. Nonetheless, many people battle to set time apart for artistic pursuits. Listed here are 5 methods to suit creativity into the daily.

London, Paris, Milan … and now Shropshire, the place a pioneering shared wardrobe scheme means you may go to the library and depart with a contemporary outfit. A rebuke to quick style, With Love From… was launched by Lizzie Dibble, who loans garments out at her native library – and hopes to roll out the concept elsewhere.

In a welcome shakeup of the college curriculum, the introduction of GCSE qualification in pure historical past was given the go-ahead by the UK authorities, paving the best way for kids to “perceive and shield the character on their doorstep and past”.

Whereas the rise in drones raises many considerations over security and privateness, they do have some good makes use of. Actually, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity is enlisting the know-how to revive temperate rainforests in hard-to-reach locations. 

“Artwork washes away from the soul the mud of on a regular basis life.” So Pablo Picasso supposedly stated, whereas pontificating on the facility of his career. He was half proper. In line with new analysis, viewing artwork reduces stress and irritation. “Cultural experiences might play an actual function in defending each thoughts and physique,” researchers concluded.

Whereas our editors had been all at residence within the heat, we despatched author Sam Haddad to Scotland’s chilly Vale of Leven to retrieve discarded fishing nets from the water. Haddad joined the rising military of volunteers who’re retrieving the ‘ghost gear’ to guard marine life. Right here’s her report.

Its puns are many, its ardour for higher bread singular. Enter the Actual Bread Marketing campaign, which fairly merely goals to democratise correct bread. We featured them in February and readers had been eager for a slice of the motion.

One in every of our 4 cowl tales this yr was this piece in regards to the 1000’s of musical devices which are thrown away yearly – and the rising variety of UK schemes giving them, and the kids who play them, a second likelihood. Uplifting stuff. 

Scientists handled the “untreatable”, species got here again from the brink, photo voltaic surged, deforestation fell, rivers had been revitalised, and the smartphone-free childhood caught on, plus a lot of different issues that went proper in 2025. 

The UK is about to get Europe’s largest oyster reef, as Constructive Information reported in December. Some 4 million native oysters are set to be returned to a synthetic reef off the coast of Norfolk (essential image) in japanese England. Conservationists say the challenge may remodel native waters and supply a mannequin for marine restoration throughout the continent.

Picture: Philip Silverman/iStock
Primary picture: Emma Critchley