Brittney Griner's Fears

The WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to nine years in Russian prison after customs agents found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage in February.

Griner's team has appealed the decision, but if she's not included in a prisoner swap between the US and Russia, the WNBA All-Star will likely serve her sentence at a penal colony.

As her detention has dragged on, Griner has grown increasingly fearful of the "miserable or inhumane conditions" she could face if and when her appeal is denied, her lawyer told The New York Times.

Here's what we know about Russian penal colonies and what Griner's experience could look like.

Russian penal colonies are prison-labor camps that are essentially the remnants of the Soviet Union's infamous Gulag system.  READ MORE...

Inside a Cargo Ship

A merchant marine gave a tour of a 958-foot cargo ship in 2019 that showed the intricacies of hulking freighters that haul 90% of the world's goods.

In the video, second mate Bryan Boyle records the vast array of machinery that keeps the ship moving, as well as the crew's and officers' living quarters on the Maersk ship, which was built in 2006.

Though the video was taken in 2019, Boyle told Insider it provides insight into the lives of shipping crew today as hundreds of cargo ships wait to dock in US ports.

In the ship's voyage, it sets out from Norfolk, Virginia, making several stops in the US before heading toward Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, to name a few destinations.

"I've had the opportunity to work on some interesting vessels," Boyle told Insider. "I've gotten to go to places that the average person wouldn't even know about. It's one of the most appealing aspects of the job."

Boyle said that there's a thrill to arrive at new destinations, remembering how he spent over a month in Africa on one trip. But the amount of time that crews get to explore new destinations has dwindled over the years, he said, as ships rush to get in and out of ports as fast as possible and early COVID-19 restrictions set limits to crew excursions.

The video shows Boyle's living quarters, as well as a movie locker that holds hundreds of titles. READ MORE...

World's Biggest Carbon Removal Plant

The world’s largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock has started running in Iceland, the companies behind the project – Switzerland’s Climeworks and Iceland’s Carbfix – said on Wednesday.

The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes that look like shipping containers.

Constructed by Climeworks, when operating at capacity the plant will draw 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air every year, the companies say.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, that equates to the emissions from about 870 cars. The plant cost between US$10 and 15m to build, Bloomberg reported.

To collect the carbon dioxide, the plant uses fans to draw air into a collector, which has a filter material inside. Once the filter material is filled with CO2, the collector is closed and the temperature is raised to release the CO2 from the material, after which the highly concentrated gas can be collected.

Then, Carbfix’s process mixes the CO2 with water and injects it at a depth of 1,000 metres into the nearby basalt rock where it is mineralised. Carbfix says the CO2-water mixture turns to stone in about two years, and hydride of sulphur (HS2), within four months. READ MORE