Expo 2020 Dubai closed in March after showcasing buildings and displays designed to maximize sustainability, one of the Expo’s top themes. Creative systems for power generation, water conservation and city planning all addressed global challenges.

For more than eight hours, we navigated the Sekonyer River in a wooden boat, cruising through Tanjung Puting National Park in the Central Kalimantan region of Borneo, Indonesia.

We all use them. Most fasten; some decorate. A search for origins points toward the Indus Valley and China. By the Middle Ages, buttons reached Europe along with other garment techniques and fashion influences from lands east. Their stories are as interwoven as the textiles they make possible and as varied as their infinite designs.

Jute grows in tropical wetlands worldwide but nowhere as organic and plentiful as the deltas of Bangladesh and India, where its golden-hued fibers are inspiring a new generation of biodegradable products from carpets to car seats, clothing to “bioplastic” grocery bags.

From Jordan and Morocco to Indonesia, the uk and more, communities and governments are supporting eco mosques. The goals: education and thrift. “We want to lead by example,” says the manager of Masjid Az-Zikra in Indonesia.

Dropping into bat caves to examine and swab their inhabitants is a day’s work for the epidemiologists at the Beirut-based biomedical research lab Human Link, whose sleuthing in 2012 helped fight mers. Now they are on the case to help the world find a vaccine to prevent covid-19.

Pressed, extracted or distilled from any of hundreds of plants, pure “essential” oils are not just a rising multibillion-dollar global industry: They are among the world’s oldest organic wellness products, now available almost everywhere.

A century ago, a Czech playwright coined the word “robot,” and 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci designed a pretty good one—and he was far from the first. (Hey Siri, who was Ismail al-Jazari?)

Can robots cook? Yes, says Michael Farid, mit grad and cofounder of the new eatery Spyce in downtown Boston. But does it taste good? Yes, says Daniel Boulud, Michelin-star chef and the culinary brains behind the Spyce menu.