Lead Story
Germany's solar plants already beat their full-year 2025 output, with two months of sunshine still to count
German photovoltaic installations generated about 90.2 terawatt-hours of electricity through September 27, 2026, according to Energy-Charts data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, already surpassing the roughly 90.0 terawatt-hours produced across the whole of 2025. The milestone came with more than three months of the year still remaining, meaning 2026 is on track to be comfortably Germany's best-ever year for solar generation. The growth reflects continued expansion of rooftop and utility-scale solar capacity even as the country works through a broader transition away from fossil-fuel power, and it adds to a string of record months reported across the European solar market this year.
Read more →Lead Story
Germany's solar plants already beat their full-year 2025 output, with two months of sunshine still to count
German photovoltaic installations generated about 90.2 terawatt-hours of electricity through September 27, 2026, according to Energy-Charts data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, already surpassing the roughly 90.0 terawatt-hours produced across the whole of 2025. The milestone came with more than three months of the year still remaining, meaning 2026 is on track to be comfortably Germany's best-ever year for solar generation. The growth reflects continued expansion of rooftop and utility-scale solar capacity even as the country works through a broader transition away from fossil-fuel power, and it adds to a string of record months reported across the European solar market this year.
Australian wind and solar farms set new generation records across three states
Large-scale solar and wind farms in Australia produced a combined 5.44 terawatt-hours of electricity in September 2026, according to data from energy research firm Rystad Energy, with new state-level production records set in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The figures mark a continuation of a multi-year trend of renewable generation growth in the country's National Electricity Market, as utility-scale solar and wind increasingly displace coal-fired power during daylight and windy periods. The milestone follows similar records reported elsewhere this year, including solar supplying a quarter of European Union electricity for the first time in June and US solar output overtaking coal generation in May.
Read more →Australian wind and solar farms set new generation records across three states
Large-scale solar and wind farms in Australia produced a combined 5.44 terawatt-hours of electricity in September 2026, according to data from energy research firm Rystad Energy, with new state-level production records set in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The figures mark a continuation of a multi-year trend of renewable generation growth in the country's National Electricity Market, as utility-scale solar and wind increasingly displace coal-fired power during daylight and windy periods. The milestone follows similar records reported elsewhere this year, including solar supplying a quarter of European Union electricity for the first time in June and US solar output overtaking coal generation in May.
Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for a lifetime of international justice work
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 9 that the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize goes to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist, honoring her efforts to promote peace and international law. The committee praised her "exceptional courage and integrity," citing a career that began with challenging South Africa's apartheid system as a lawyer, continued as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and included serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She became the fifth South African to win the prize, selected from 287 nominations this year, and received the news while attending an international law gathering in Nuremberg, Germany. Last year's laureate was Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
Read more →Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for a lifetime of international justice work
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 9 that the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize goes to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist, honoring her efforts to promote peace and international law. The committee praised her "exceptional courage and integrity," citing a career that began with challenging South Africa's apartheid system as a lawyer, continued as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and included serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She became the fifth South African to win the prize, selected from 287 nominations this year, and received the news while attending an international law gathering in Nuremberg, Germany. Last year's laureate was Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
Nobel Prize in Medicine honors optogenetics pioneers whose light-based tool is illuminating brain disease research
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on October 5 to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their discoveries of light-gated ion channels and the development of optogenetics. Hegemann and Nagel identified the light-sensitive protein channelrhodopsin in the green alga Chlamydomonas, and Deisseroth introduced the gene for that protein into nerve cells, allowing researchers to trigger or silence individual nerve signals in a living brain simply by shining blue light on them. The technique has let scientists map how specific brain circuits drive behaviors such as learning, fear, addiction and movement, and researchers say it may eventually help guide treatments for neurological and sensory disorders including Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. The trio shares prize money of 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.
Read more →Nobel Prize in Medicine honors optogenetics pioneers whose light-based tool is illuminating brain disease research
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on October 5 to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their discoveries of light-gated ion channels and the development of optogenetics. Hegemann and Nagel identified the light-sensitive protein channelrhodopsin in the green alga Chlamydomonas, and Deisseroth introduced the gene for that protein into nerve cells, allowing researchers to trigger or silence individual nerve signals in a living brain simply by shining blue light on them. The technique has let scientists map how specific brain circuits drive behaviors such as learning, fear, addiction and movement, and researchers say it may eventually help guide treatments for neurological and sensory disorders including Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. The trio shares prize money of 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.
Nobel Chemistry Prize honors solution to a century-old puzzle about the building blocks of life
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on October 7 to Henri B. Kagan of France's Universite Paris-Sud and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science for discovering non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Their work addresses homochirality, the long-standing mystery of why living organisms build themselves almost exclusively from one mirror-image form of molecules such as amino acids, a puzzle dating back to 19th-century chemist Louis Pasteur. Kagan's 1986 method dramatically improved control over which mirror-image molecule a reaction produces, while Soai's 1995 and 2003 experiments demonstrated the first chemical reaction capable of spontaneously amplifying that imbalance, showing in the lab how homochirality could in principle emerge on its own. Soai, 76, and Kagan, 95, share the prize of 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.
Read more →Nobel Chemistry Prize honors solution to a century-old puzzle about the building blocks of life
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on October 7 to Henri B. Kagan of France's Universite Paris-Sud and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science for discovering non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Their work addresses homochirality, the long-standing mystery of why living organisms build themselves almost exclusively from one mirror-image form of molecules such as amino acids, a puzzle dating back to 19th-century chemist Louis Pasteur. Kagan's 1986 method dramatically improved control over which mirror-image molecule a reaction produces, while Soai's 1995 and 2003 experiments demonstrated the first chemical reaction capable of spontaneously amplifying that imbalance, showing in the lab how homochirality could in principle emerge on its own. Soai, 76, and Kagan, 95, share the prize of 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.