Physicist Michio Kaku once said, "What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems... there's no law of physics preventing them." And so it has been with railway and metro bridges that span waterways. The city of Washington, D.C., is bounded on two sides by rivers and an untold number of streams. Every morning the Orange Line, one of six train lines that serve the city, ferries 12,060 commuters—per hour. And this miracle occurs every day in Berlin, Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, Shanghai, and numerous other metropolitan areas. In the United Kingdom alone there are more than 40,000 railway bridges.

Read more: In the face of climate change can our engineers keep the trains running on time?

This is the first time a WMO Regional Office will be located within Asia and the South-West Pacific and the Office will act as a forum for regional challenges such as trans-boundary haze arising from large-scale land and vegetation fires.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) opened a new office for the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore on August 21 2017 to improve coordination on hazards ranging from floods to fires and to strengthen meteorological services for rapidly evolving economic sectors such as air and marine transport. The Regional Office is being hosted by the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS) and will serve as the nerve centre for WMO’s programmes in the region.

Read more: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) opens new regional office in Singapore

SINGAPORE - Imagine a future where all of Singapore’s vegetables are grown in a completely controlled environment, and where every stage of a plant's growth can be calibrated - from its soil composition to the amount of air and light it gets.

Such farm factories are fast becoming a reality indoors, located in warehouses and industrial buildings.

Hothousing them in this way allows for a faster and smarter way of growing greens, thanks to agrotechnology - such as the use of artificial LED light, computer-controlled watering and fertilising, and genome editing of crops. At the same time, such vertical farms have a smaller physical and energy footprint.

There has been rising interest around the world in indoor farms, said Associate Professor Sanjay Swarup from the Department of Biological Science at the National University of Singapore. "Not only (are we seeing) large-scale production which is under controlled conditions, but it is also now comparable to what people can get from outdoor cultivation."

Currently, there are around 200 food farms in Singapore producing fish, eggs and vegetables - 15 of which are indoor farms.

Read more: The future of local farming: Balancing technology and nature