What better way to start the weekend than with some tasty bite-sized chunks of upbeat news?

World's Hottest Pepper
South Carolina pepper expert Ed Currie has crossbred a new type of pepper that’s three times spicier than the California Reaper, the previous record-holder for the world’s hottest chili pepper. Currie - who also developed the California Reaper in 2013 - revealed the new Pepper X and accepted the Guiness World Record for it on an episode of the YouTube series "Hot Ones" earlier this week. Currie describes his creation as providing “immediate, brutal heat,” reports the Associated Press.
Stevenson's The Student
The oldest student newspaper in Europe has been saved from closure thanks to a crowd-funding campaign that raised £5,700 ($6,920). Edinburgh University’s The Student was started by the novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887. It now publishes a print edition once a fortnight, and online every day. “The donations have come in from all kinds of people, but the most heartening to see has been people in the student community,” said its editor-in-chief. “We are so overjoyed.”
Daily Miracle
Here's a beautiful little extract from Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy, a New York Times bestseller, that's sure to provide you with a quiet moment of reflection...
"Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you:
a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting,
a bee humming, a raindrop falling,
a snowflake wafting along
the clear evening air.
There is magic everywhere.
If you learn how to live it,
life is nothing short of a daily miracle."
Dad's Classic
A man who discovered his father's beloved classic car on an auction website has completed its restoration after three years of graft. Malcolm Stern, from Hertfordshire in England, chanced on the 1930s Talbot Darracq while trying to recreate a 3D model. He said he could not believe it was the very car his father owned, although it had become a "right wreck". The 94-year-old said taking it to the road again was terrifying. "Many people get old cars but this one is different, because it was my father's car, it makes it a little bit special," he said.
Giant Tortoises
A decades-long breeding project to restore giant tortoises on Española in the Galapagos Islands has transformed the barren ecosystem into a savanna, reports Hakai. In 2020, nearly 2,000 captive-bred tortoises were released, and the population blossomed to 3,000. Giant tortoises, like beavers, are ecological architects. 'As few as one or two tortoises per hectare is enough to trigger a shift in the landscape.'

Astonishingly Powerful
The Earth has been hit by a powerful blast of energy from the very depths of the universe. The fast radio burst is the most distant of its kind of ever seen, coming from so far away that it has travelled eight billion years to get to Earth. It is also astonishingly powerful, one of the most energetic of its kind ever seen. In less than a second, it released the same energy that comes out of the Sun in more than 30 years. The findings were reported in the journal Science. "While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the Universe,” said Ryan Shannon, from the Swinburne University of Technology in Malaysia.
"It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend." Margaret Thatcher
On this Day
21 October 1959: The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.
As Earth ploughs through the dust cloud, once part of the tail of Halley’s comet, the Orionid meteor shower peaks tonight. Look up...
Sustainability and superyacht are two words that don't normally fit together. This one is about to change that. Onyx H2-BO...
Planet-friendly diet is good for the environment, cuts the risk of illness and can also help you live longer. Greens...
Mood Booster
Cadburys Eyebrow Dance TV Commercial: Who came up with this idea to sell chocolate?