Today's collection of uplifting news nuggets.
Archaeologists in Maryland have dug up a rare English coin they believe could have been dropped by one of the original colonists to America. The silver shilling, bearing the image of King Charles I, was discovered during an excavation at the site of an old fort in the city of St. Mary’s. The shilling has a maker’s mark on both sides, indicating it was struck in the royal mint in the Tower of London about 1633 or 1634. The reverse side of the coin shows a coat of arms and the Latin motto “Christo Auspice Regno” - I Reign Under the Auspices of Christ.
Meanwhile, 8,000 miles away in a southern Africa desert, researchers believe they may have found the earliest known human 'home' in a South African cave, with evidence of domesticity there dating as far back as two million years. The Canadian-Israeli team found traces of the earliest ever use of fire, at least one million years ago, and of hand tools (including axes) in the 140m deep Wonderwerk Cave in the southern Kalahari Desert.
Good news for singles: As vaccination rates continue to rise and “hot vax summer” trends on social media, people are looking to get out and socialize in an intimate way, sending U.S. condom sales surging by 25 percent. Hardly surprising as Match.com's Singles in America Survey reports that 71 percent of singles haven't had sex since the pandemic started.
When Hurricane Iris hit southern Belize in 2001, the country's magnificent corals were destroyed. When scientists first began to explore the idea of reef restoration, they thought that the larger the transplant from another healthy reef, the higher the chance of survival. But in 2015 a marine biologist discovered that the opposite can also be true - the smaller the piece, the faster it grows. This so-called 'micro-fragmentation' enormously accelerated the restoration work and now, 20 years later, the reef is thriving again.
The Biden administration has announced it supports waiving intellectual property (IP) protections for Covid-19 vaccines. In the statement, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai says we are currently living through a "global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures." Countries around the globe are struggling to produce enough vaccines quickly, so the hope is that by waiving patent protections on the vaccines, more people will be vaccinated faster, and the spread of the virus will slow down significantly.
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Surfer dog...
Meet Abbie: she holds the Guinness World Record for the longest wave surfed by a dog - a very impressive 107m. Who knew there were dog surfing competitions!?