Wednesday's collection of good news nuggets.
Captain Sir Tom Moore made it his mission to raise money for the NHS by doing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday. Now, one year and nearly £39m later, his family are asking people to follow in his footsteps and come up with their own challenge based around the number 100 that they can complete over what would have been his 101st birthday weekend. “This is to ensure that that message of hope is his lasting legacy,” said his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore. “He gave us hope, so we’ve got to keep hope going. He said to us: ‘This is yours. I started it, now do it your way.’” Moore would have turned 101 on Friday 30 April and people are encouraged to meet their challenge that weekend and donate the money to his foundation or to another charity.
EU Commission announces new plan to boost the production and consumption of organic products in order to reach 25 percent of agricultural land under organic farming by 2030. Organic production comes with important benefits: organic fields have around 30 percent more biodiversity, organically farmed animals enjoy a higher degree of animal welfare and take less antibiotics, organic farmers have higher incomes and are more resilient, and consumers know exactly what they are getting thanks to the EU organic logo.
6 ways to boost your midlife brain: Forgetfulness isn't inevitable, says Professor James Goodwin, author of Supercharge Your Brain.
OGN's favourite April Fool's joke this year was the announcement by Argos of the launch of its latest product, the Treadmow. Argos said: “We have seen a massive rise in demand for fitness equipment and garden improvement products in the past 12 months, so it made sense for us to combine the two and create the ultimate home gadget to meet these trends. At Argos, we cater for every need, and so we hope this new product offers the perfect solution for busy households this summer.”
Australian and New Zealand residents will be able to travel between the two nations without having to quarantine from 19 April.
Good news for UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak as businesses say they are preparing to ramp up capital spending after years of underinvestment, boosting hopes of a rapid economic bounce-back from the pandemic. The UK’s leading group of manufacturers found that over half of companies will either invest more cash as a result of the Government’s ‘super-deduction’ tax break (which allows companies to deduct 130 percent of the value of plant and machinery from profits), or bring forward their investment plans. A separate survey by accountancy firm BDO found that three quarters of medium-sized companies believe 2021 is now the year to invest.
Furthermore, stronger recoveries from the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, the UK and other rich western countries, combined with stimulus packages, will result in faster than expected growth for the global economy this year, the International Monetary Fund predicts.
Hubble's successor: After 15 years of development and $10 billion spent, the James Webb Space Telescope is ebbing ever closer to launch. It will be looking at objects from 13.6 billion years ago, an estimated 100 to 250 million years after the Big Bang. This is the furthest back in time ever observed by humanity.
Every now and then we hear about asteroids whizzing past earth and that there's nothing to worry about. But, on the basis that one day there might be something to worry about, the good news is that later this year NASA will be sending a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) into space to test out its ability to re-direct the flight path of a chunk of rock and learn a lot about potentially diverting dangerous asteroids from becoming meteors that hit Earth. It would be good to know that we won't have to rely on Bruce Willis or Superman any more.
Netflix shoots for net-zero: The streaming giant promises to achieve net-zero emissions by the end of 2022.
Assume nothing: granny takes on teenager over a snack...