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  This is a 1905 Columbia XXXV Open Drive Brougham, which won best in class for the EVs. This Edwardian monster is a twin-motor design. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

AMELIA ISLAND, FLORIDA—It's rare to see an electric vehicle among the polished and restored vintage cars of a concours d'elegance. (That's French for a very fancy car show.) And that's despite the fact that electric power was a credible alternative to the internal combustion engine for the first few decades of the automobile. But this year's Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance went some way to rectifying that. Under the oppressive humidity, nestled between the usual concours fare of interwar phaetons and a wonderful assortment of Porsche 935s, there was an entire class of ancient EVs on display.

And what a varied class it was. A marvelously named Electrobat IV 1895 was the oldest EV to take to the well-manicured golf course. They were still in the earliest stages of figuring out this whole automobile thing 126 years ago and the Electrobat IV, running on skinny buggy tires, still looks like it's missing its horse. But the real innovation that Pedro Salem and Henry Morris came up with for the Electrobat was its electric powertrain, consisting of a 1.5 hp (1.1 kW) motor and a 350 lb (159 kg) battery. They went on to build a fleet of Electrobat taxis that operated in New York at the beginning of the last century.

The Waverley Electric from 1901 was nearly primitive, and again there's the impression that it's incomplete without an accompanying equine. But the 1901 Waverley rides on pneumatic treaded tires, it has headlights, and is powered by a 2.5 hp (1.8 kW) motor. A Waverley Four-Passenger Coupe from 1910 shows how far the Indianapolis-based company developed over a decade; while obviously an antique, the red two-door fits most definitions of a car.

Enlarge / In 2020, Intel partnered with the National Forest Foundation in Phase III of a project replacing invasive Arundo and Tamarix weed species with native flora and revegetating burned-off areas. This phase of the project aims to restore 79 million gallons of fresh water per year. (credit: Intel)

Two of the world's leading chip manufacturers—Intel and TSMC—are increasing their US-based manufacturing presence by building new plants in Arizona.

Chip foundries are critically dependent on water, and Arizona is one of the driest states in the nation. Arizona gets only 13.6 inches of annual rainfall (compared with 50-60 inches in most of the Deep South, or 30.3 inches average for the USA as a whole). But as Forrester research director Glenn O'Donnell told CNBC, chip-fabrication plants are similar to indoor swimming pools—"you need a lot to fill it, but you don't have to add much to keep it going."

Counterintuitively, the famously thirsty industry can even improve the local water supply due to a focus on reclamation and purification—Intel has funded 15 water restoration projects in the Grand Canyon State with a goal of restoring 937 million gallons per year, and it expects to reach net positive water use once the projects are completed.

Enlarge / The 2021, 24-inch iMac with Apple's M1. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Much has been written about people embracing nostalgia for comfort during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the new 24-inch iMac's bright colors and simplistic design, Apple seems to be indulging in the pangs of nostalgia, too.

But the new iMac's nostalgia is only skin deep. Inside, it has arguably the most advanced CPU currently sold in consumer devices: the M1. This chip is equally at home in an iPad and a Mac, yet the M1 delivers performance that rivals or beats some of the best desktop chips available in some cases.

Even though the M1 offers enough performance to attract power users, this new iMac isn't really for them. Rather, the 24-inch iMac is first and foremost about simplicity. It's a computer that promises users they won't have to think about how to configure or maintain a system. It's a computer that's more concerned about fitting into the room than it is about taking you somewhere else.

Enlarge (credit: Scott Kublin)

On a blustery October afternoon at the Wolfcrow Bison Ranch in southern Alberta, Canada, Dan Fox and his ranch hand, Man Blackplume, tried to wrestle fence panels into place despite a 60 mph wind. The next day was weaning day—and the fence needed to be rock solid so the bison calves could be separated from their mothers.

The two members of the Kainai First Nation, also known as the Blood Tribe, braced their bodies against the 12-foot-high fence panels so they could nail them to the posts, but the panels flapped in the wind like giant wooden flags. Across the pasture, 30 bison stood huddled together in the corner, unfazed by the commotion. They were part of the first bison herd to grace the Blood Reserve in 150 years, Fox says. The Kainai First Nation is one of four tribal groups within the Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana.

Fox, 63, believes the animals may have helped extend his life. He experienced a cancer scare more than 20 years ago, and at the suggestion of a Blackfoot healer and naturopath, he changed his diet, replacing processed food with bison meat and other ancestral foods. His health improved, and today he says he feels better than ever. He is convinced that his family and his community will benefit, as he did, by having the buffalo back on the land and in their lives. (Bison bison is the scientific name for the animal, but buffalo is the word that most Indigenous people use.)