Ensuring the week ends on a positive note with today's upbeat news nuggets.
Every Country
A schoolteacher in the San Francisco area has joined the elite ranks of humans who have visited every nation on Earth. Lucy Hsu, 42, who teaches second grade in San Jose, California, has officially visited 193 nations. There is no official tally of who has visited every country in the world but it’s estimated to be somewhere around 400. Hsu says that the biggest question people ask her is how she’s able to afford to travel so much. She says it’s through a variety of cost-saving strategies but her biggest one is by signing up to do volunteer exchange programs and homestays.
Stat of The Day
30 percent: Renewable energy accounted for more than 30 percent of the world’s electricity for the first time in 2023, according to the Global Electricity Review published by climate think tank Ember. “The renewables future has arrived,” said Dave Jones, global insights director at Ember. “Solar in particular is accelerating faster than anyone thought possible.”
Prison Break In
A peregrine falcon and her growing family are now being live-streamed from their home on San Francisco’s famed Alcatraz Island. The species’ presence on the island has been hailed by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy as “a tremendous conservation success story” as peregrine falcons previously suffered in the U.S. due to the widespread use of now-banned pesticides like DDT. In 1970, a survey in California found just two peregrine nests in the entire state, making this brood all the more notable. The livestream (which you can watch here) comes from the conservancy and shows the family in their nest at the former prison.
Militocodon lydae
This cute looking little mammal looked like a chinchilla and weighed only a pound - but is more closely related cows - once roamed what is now Colorado after the dinosaurs went extinct. Researchers in Colorado discovered the fossilized skull of this tiny, now-extinct mammal that lived around 65 million years ago, and believe this newly discovered species - Militocodon lydae - was part of a group that gave rise to modern hoofed mammals, such as cows, deer and pigs.
Genetic Marker
For the first time, researchers have found that a genetic marker - two copies of a particular gene - is an underlying cause in late-in-life Alzheimer's. Previously, genes were thought to only affect the types of Alzheimer’s that hit people at much younger ages. The finding opens the door for research to develop gene therapy or drugs to target the offending gene.
Longest Baguette
In July, thousands of athletes will descend upon France for the Summer Olympics but, in the meantime, French bakers have already won their version of a gold medal: a new world record for the longest baguette. A team of bread bakers - 'boulangers' in French - whipped up a 461-foot-long baguette in a suburb on the western edge of Paris. It was longer than the 435-foot baguette baked in Italy in 2019, the current world record holder, according to Guinness World Records. “A record for the longest artisanal baguette requires real collective sportsmanship. In this year of the Olympics, congratulations to all our artisan bakers,” says Guillaume Boudy, the local mayor, in a translated statement.
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.” Mark Twain
On This Day
10 May 1872: Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman to be nominated for US presidency by Equal Rights Party at Apollo Hall, NYC.
Mood Booster
Family of bears takes a dip in a swimming pool in California.