Today's collection of positive news nuggets.
Enough vaccines for all: In the two months since mass vaccination began, at least 148m doses have been administered. Around the world, a further 39m are now getting a jab every week. And the good news is that there's enough ordered for everyone on Earth to get their two shots - as long as rich countries share.
One of the most iconic components of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebrations is the beautifully-decorated floats that partake in over 50 parades across the city. As the pandemic put celebrations on hold this year, Mardi Gras float fanatics found a new way to celebrate safely: by turning their homes into floats. More than 3,000 homes were decorated in the spirit of the holiday.
Hot on the heels of news of the world's first 'airport for electric flying cars' to open later this year in the heart of the UK, in Coventry, it's been announced that Coventry airport (the one for aeroplanes) is slated to house a factory making batteries for electric vehicles. It's the preferred site for a "gigafactory" in the region. Large-scale battery manufacturing will be key to the health of the automotive sector given the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars that comes into force in 2030.
Very good news for the crew of an oil tanker beached off UAE. The five men can go home after four years stranded at sea. The five Indian nationals were abandoned without wages on a ship that ran aground, but have now received payment and will be repatriated to their families.
Ford has announced its European passenger vehicle offering will be 100 percent electric by 2030, saying it's going “all-in“ on lower-emissions models. The US car-manufacturing giant said 100 percent of its passenger range across the continent will be “zero emissions capable” by mid-2026, with the move to all-electric a few years later.
Ancient Egyptian brewery discovered: It seems that a cold beer on a hot sunny day has been one of life's great pleasures for a lot longer than many suspected. The new find is probably "the oldest high-production brewery in the world" capable of producing 40,000 pints in a single batch, 5,000 years ago. Impressive!
Remarkable new study finds that Fin whale songs are powerful enough to reverberate through the Earth’s crust, allowing scientists to study its thickness and structure up to 8,200 feet below the sea bottom.
In an act of kindness, 8-year-old Keoni Ching from Vancouver, Washington, recently started a small enterprise to help out his schoolmates. With his handmade key chains that go for $5 each, Keoni managed to raise $4,015 - enough to erase the lunch debts of students from his school and six others.
Tibetan Song Bowl Longplayer: A remarkable one thousand year long musical composition that began playing at midnight on the 31 December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again.
Perhaps it's time to embrace the Dutch concept of niksen - or the art of doing nothing - to dissipate anxiety, allow creativity to bubble to the surface and to boost your productivity. It's all about allowing your mind to wander wherever it likes and hopefully arriving at contentment.
If niksen doesn't quite do it for you, this gorgeous 4 minute video showing the magnificent beauty of nature, with an equally uplifting soundtrack, may do the trick and put you in a blissful place of contentment:
If you're enjoying OGN Daily, please spread the good news by telling your friends...