A helium reservoir in northern Minnesota is likely to be "expansive both laterally and at depth," a new survey shows.

Seismic data from a 0.7-mile-long (1.1 kilometers) sweep just outside of Babbitt suggest the recently discovered reservoir is larger than initial estimates indicated, which has resource exploration company Pulsar Helium and its potential clients jumping for joy.

Recent tests also revealed helium concentrations underground are even higher than the "mind-boggling" results obtained in March, firmly establishing the project in Minnesota as a major player in the global helium market.

A unique development process is underway at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, where the federal government is transferring 5 acres of land to local control.

Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, a nonprofit formerly known as Friends of the Falls, has selected a design team guided by Dakota knowledge keepers to conduct a consensus-based ecological restoration. The land was both the birthplace of Minneapolis and sacred to the Indigenous people who lived there before.

"We're working towards 100% land restoration, bringing flowing water back, bringing back species of life where they once were," said Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and a former Prairie Island tribal leader. "People are really excited about this and willing to change how they do business normally to make sure that this site truly does give back to all of us."

The cat tour started small.

John Edwards thought it would be hilarious — and somewhat ridiculous — to lead a walk through his Minneapolis neighborhood admiring the many felines that live there.

“It’s the kind of densely populated neighborhood where if you’re walking around, you’re going to see a lot of cats,” said Edwards, who lives in Lowry Hill East — often called “the Wedge” because of its wedgelike shape — where there are roughly 9,300 residents.

About a dozen people showed up for the impromptu cat tour, led by Edwards, seven years ago. Over a two-mile walk, the group stopped to see some 20 cats peeking through their windows.

Edwards — who runs a hyperlocal media publication called Wedge Live — never anticipated his cat tour concept would catch on. But people loved it and wanted more, so Edwards began organizing an annual cat tour.

It grew every year.

For well over a century, we had the opportunity to study Neanderthals—their bones, the items they left behind, their distribution across Eurasia. So, when we finally obtained the sequence of their genome and discovered that we share a genetic legacy with them, it was easy to place the discoveries into context. In contrast, we had no idea Denisovans existed when sequencing DNA from a small finger bone revealed that yet another relative of modern humans had roamed Asia in the recent past.

Since then, we've learned little more. The frequency of their DNA in modern human populations suggest that they were likely concentrated in East Asia. But we've only discovered fragments of bone and a few teeth since then, so we can't even make very informed guesses as to what they might have looked like. On Wednesday, an international group of researchers described finds from a cave on the Tibetan Plateau that had been occupied by Denisovans, which tell us a bit more about these relatives: what they ate. And that appears to be anything they could get their hands on.

A new law barring the production or sale of high-inducing, hemp-derived cannabis products will take effect Monday after a judge declined to block it.

Hemp Quarters 605, a Pierre-based shop that sells those products, filed a lawsuit earlier this month in U.S. District Court in South Dakota. The business claims the new law’s provisions are unconstitutional and in conflict with federal law.

Several laws passed in the 2024 legislative session took effect Monday, establishing new policies and funding sources for education, economic development and the environment.

The law, which took effect last year, says people with felony convictions regain the right to vote after they have completed any prison term.

Quinn ruled the law was unconstitutional in a pair of orders in which he sentenced two offenders to probation, but warned them they were not eligible to vote or to register to vote — even though the law says they were. It was an unusual step because nobody involved in those cases ever asked him to rule on the constitutionality of the law.

A team of researchers led by an archaeologist at the University of Sydney are the first to suggest that eyed needles were a new technological innovation used to adorn clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to clothes as an expression of identity.

"Eyed needle tools are an important development in prehistory because they document a transition in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes," says Dr. Ian Gilligan, Honorary Associate in the discipline of Archaeology at the University of Sydney.

From stone tools that prepared animal skins for humans to use as thermal insulation, to the advent of bone awls and eyed needles to create fitted and adorned garments, why did we start to dress to express ourselves and to impress others?

A host of Minnesota environmental groups are calling out state agencies tasked with protecting public health and natural resources, alleging that regulators consistently cater to industrial interests.

People Not Polluters, a 16-member coalition, issued a June 11 declaration taking on Minnesota agencies. Citing examples from the Line 3 oil pipeline in northern Minnesota, to agriculture feedlots in the southeast and industrial sites like Smith Foundry in Minneapolis, People Not Polluters makes the case that Governor Tim Walz’s administration favors industry over the public.

“We see a pattern of polluting industries having undue influence over state agencies that are charged with protecting human health and the environment,” said Margaret Levin, state director of the Sierra Club’s North Star Chapter.

Archaeologists made an intriguing find this week at Michigan's Colonial Michilimackinac, Mackinac State Historic Parks officials said, an 18th century brass trade ring.

Researchers with the archaeological program at the Mackinaw City museum identified the piece as a trade good sometimes known as a "Jesuit Ring," parks officials announced in a press release.

"It's incredibly exciting," Dominick Miller, chief of marketing for Mackinac State Historic Parks, told The Detroit News.

Journalist Linda Tirado is dying after being shot by cops while covering the George Floyd protests. Her work told the story of poverty from the inside out.

A team of geneticists and archaeologists affiliated with multiple institutions in France has uncovered skeletons in an ancient gravesite not far from Paris that show evidence of steppe migrant integration with Late Neolithic Europeans. The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

Prior research has shown that there was a slow migration of herding people from what is now Russia and Ukraine to Europe thousands of years ago. During the migrations, many of the migrants (who were mostly male) produced children with the local farmers they encountered.

In this new study, the research team reports evidence of such reproduction in remains found in an open grave in the Champagne region of France. Skeletons in the grave showed evidence of a native European woman who had produced a child with a steppe migrant.