California

Google must be pleased with BIG's work on its Charleston East and London HQ's as the tech giant has commissioned the architecture firm to design yet another new campus. This one will be located in Sunnyvale, California, and comprises two green-roofed buildings with long, sloping terraces.

​California Assembly member Phil Ting has introduced the Clean Cars 2040 bill, banning the sale of fossil-fueled vehicles in California from 2040. This would bring California, if not the rest of the USA, into line with several other regions around the world in a move towards zero-emissions motoring.

​The legalization of recreational marijuana in some US states has resulted in a giant new multibillion dollar industry. The latest THC-innovation comes from a Californian winery that has created the world’s first alcohol-free, marijuana-infused Sauvignon Blanc.

After launching the first public highway trials in Sweden last year, Siemens has now taken its "eHighway of the Future" concept to the US. A mile-long stretch of road in California has had an overhead catenary system installed, to power the electric drives of three hybrid freight haulers.

The Porsche 356 is practically priceless, and one of the most beautiful cars to ever hit the road, but it's also given life to an underground "Outlaw" movement for people keen to ride the slipstream of the legend. Emory has taken this aesthetic and applied it to the Outlaw Tracker Vintage e-bike.

For decades, scientists believed humans arrived in America anywhere from 13,500 to 16,500 years ago. Now new research from the Cerutti Mastodon Discovery, an archeological site in California, blows those estimates away by suggesting hominids arrived on the continent as early as 130,000 years ago.

Along with the big names, smaller players are pushing to nail the autonomous driving formula with their own kits. One such company is AImotive, where we dropped by to chat with senior team member Lorant Pocsveiler about how self-driving cars see, understand and react to the world around them.

No one wants to put their lives in the hands of a driverless car with less than bulletproof reliability, forcing Google to subject their cars to millions of miles of testing. Those miles are starting to make a difference, with new figures showing the number of self-driving errors is dropping.

The roll-out of electric vehicle fast charging facilities in the US is gathering pace. Earlier this month, the White House revealed details of 48 charging corridors that will run along 55 interstate highways, while work has also now started on the DriveTheArc corridor in Northern California.

While it's unlikely that George Lucas will appreciate the irony, it seems fitting that a museum of storytelling should have such complex plot twists. Indeed, the troubled saga of the building of his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is now on episodes three and four.

​A new species of millipede has been discovered in a cave in California. Dubbed Illacme tobini, it's been studied from a single male specimen and boasts 414 legs, four penises, 200 poison glands that spray an unknown chemical, mysterious mouthparts and a body covered in hairs that secrete silk.

Lawmakers are covering new ground as they regulate autonomous car testing, trying to balance the need for technology to progress with public safety. With this in mind, California has approved unmanned testing, allowing self-driving cars to roam the streets with no human backup behind the wheel.