Features
Two men, a hovercraft, and a year adrift in the Arctic Ocean
The central Arctic is contested water and almost nobody is in it. In 2014 two Norwegians parked a hovercraft on a floe and let it carry them 2,200 km.
North region
Woodlands: local weather, transport and housing
The northern gateway to the Causeway, and the checkpoint that shapes its daily rhythm.
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The place
How Woodlands came to be the way it is.
Woodlands is a border town. The Johor–Singapore Causeway, opened in 1923, lands here, and the checkpoint that controls it shapes the district's daily rhythm more than anything else about it: the direction of the traffic reverses twice a day, and a disruption at the crossing is felt across the north.
The rest of the district is housing, and it was developed comparatively late, which means the estates are planned around the rail line rather than the rail line being retrofitted to the estates. Woodlands has two lines, and the second one, opened in stages from 2020, cut the journey to the city centre substantially.
It is also designated a regional centre, on the same logic as Tampines and Jurong: put work where the people already are. In Woodlands that argument has an extra dimension, because a meaningful share of the people crossing the causeway every morning are travelling in the other direction.
Air temperature, Woodlands —°C Reading…
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Meteorological Service Singapore, via the national open-data service read at page load
- North-South Line The first line to open, in 1987. The original spine, running north from the city out to Jurong East.
- Thomson-East Coast Line Opened from 2020 in stages and still extending; a second north-south spine.
2 lines serve Woodlands, of six on the network How reliability is measured
-6.3%
Median resale flat S$590,000 Against the islandwide median of S$630k
Record
Sales counted 1,738 Last twelve months, Woodlands town
Rank
Among 26 towns 20of 26 Dearest first, by median
Islandwide median, for context
Housing & Development Board, resale flat transactions Jan 2017 to Aug 2026
Science
The dragon ants of New Guinea, and what X-rays found inside
Two ant species from Papua New Guinea got Game of Thrones names. The reason the paper matters is what microtomography revealed under the spines.
Tech
The premium says little without the quota
Every report of a bidding exercise quotes the price. The number that produced it — how many certificates were on offer — is published in the same file and almost never appears beside it.
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What is there
Named places, with what each one is.
- Woodlands Waterfront Park A promontory park on the Johor Strait with a long jetty, looking directly across at Malaysia.
- Johor–Singapore Causeway The 1923 road and rail link across the strait, and the reason the district's traffic reverses twice a day.
- Admiralty Park The largest park in the north, on a slope of secondary forest with a mangrove edge.
- Woodlands Regional Centre The planned commercial core for the north, still under construction.
Places of record rather than recommendations.
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Read on
Topics that shape the district.
World
What a contagion model found in US mass-shooting data
Researchers borrowed the mathematics of epidemics and applied it to mass killings. The estimated window of raised risk is thirteen days.
Tech
The biggest dam in the world, explained: tallest vs largest
Four different structures can each claim the title, depending on whether you measure height, bulk, reservoir or output. None of them is wrong.
Science
Ocean currents explained: the map, the types and the climate
An ocean currents map is really two maps printed on top of each other. Wind drives the top few hundred metres; density drives everything below.