What better way to end the week than with an uplifting bundle of positive news nuggets?
Measuring What Matters
In an effort to develop stronger connections between social and economic objectives, Australia has launched a 'national wellbeing' dashboard. Updated annually, it will track and reflect data across five categories - sustainable, prosperous, cohesive, secure and healthy. According to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, people have historically believed that social and economic objectives are in conflict with one another. However, the intention behind the new wellbeing dashboard is to measure progress on social issues, alongside gross domestic product, employment and inflation. After the release of a government report titled Measuring What Matters, Chalmers believes social and economic objectives "can be in concert and that is what the national wellbeing framework is all about."
New Colossus
Researchers have uncovered fossil remains from what is believed to be the heaviest animal known to have existed, according to findings published yesterday. The specimen is an ancient whale species - dubbed Perucetus colossus, or "the colossal whale from Peru" - roughly 39 million years old. The creature is estimated to have weighed more than 300 tons or more, two to three times the size of a blue whale (the current record holder).
Public Service
BBC radio is to re-broadcast a play for a listener who missed the ending in 1978. Sue Reilly was “gripped” by The Gazebo, a comic murder mystery by Alec Coppel, when she first heard it on the World Service, said The Telegraph, but she missed the closing minutes and never heard the conclusion of the story. After she wrote to the BBC, Radio 4 Extra will broadcast the play on 6 August at as part of its All Request Weekend. “After 45 years I will finally know what happened,” she said.
Turtle Nest Record
Florida's Palm Beach County has shattered the record for the number of turtle nests recorded during a single nesting season on Juno Beach, with three months of counting still to come. Already, the 9.5 mile Juno Beach has seen 21,872 mostly-loggerhead sea turtle nests, compared to an end-season total of 18,132 nests last October. “We are so excited to break this all-time nesting record and can’t wait to see if each sea turtle species breaks its individual record,” said Dr. Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center.
Paperless Receipts
The end of the systematic printing of paper sales receipts has come into effect in France. This measure, which also applies to bank card receipts, has been taken in the name of the environment.
Euclid Opens Its Eyes
Europe's new space telescope, Euclid, has returned its first images. Engineers switched on the cameras of the €1.4bn ($1.5bn) observatory to begin a phase of testing and captured a wide vista of stars and galaxies. Once properly set up, Euclid will start building a 3D map of the cosmos in an effort to tie down the nature of so-called dark matter and dark energy. Together, these phenomena appear to control the shape and expansion of everything we see out there. Quite what they are, however, currently remains uncertain.
August: Brilliant Month For Star Gazers. We've just had the month's first supermoon, but there's another one coming up and some meteors and the chance to see Saturn's rings...
Sleeping Separately
American couples are done tossing and turning: More than a third have opted for a “sleep divorce,” according to a recent survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. A sleep divorce entails partners amicably deciding to retire to separate beds or rooms. The separation could be due to loud snoring, conflicting schedules, temperature preferences, or even blanket hogging. Millennials (aged between 25 to 40) reported the highest rate (43 percent) of consistently or occasionally sleeping in another room, followed by those in Gen X (aged 41 to 56) at 33 percent.
“It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On this Day
4 August 1958: The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time, with Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson at #1.
Topless drinking, in this particular case, is not quite as bold as it sounds - but this handy little device is a great idea. Cheers...
Kick off your running shoes and put away your bike; the best way to tackle high blood pressure involves barely moving at all. Static Isometric...
From penguins to caracaras, enjoy this selection of finalists from the 2022 Bird Photographer of the Year competition. Snap happy...
Mood Booster
Unorthodox way of joining friends for a coffee...