Collection of good news nuggets to get the weekend off to an upbeat start.
From Everglades to Okefenokee, Florida, legislators just created one of the biggest wildlife corridors in the developed world with $400 million funding. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act ensures that animals can travel - without seeing a car or a human, from the Everglades Estuary to the borders with Georgia and Alabama - while protecting existing and new conservation areas.
The Yale School of Drama has announced that degree and certificate programs will be tuition-free "in perpetuity" thanks to an "unprecedented" $150 million donation from billionaire David Geffen.
If you're frustrated by not being able to get to your favourite festivals this year, then you might like to turn your attention to the LEGO Volkswagen T1 Camper Van: a 1,334-piece replica of the classic VW Camper Van from 1962. Pump up the volume on your sound system and 'go camping' at your festival of choice.
Quiet, clean, and green are not words you would typically use to describe a construction site. But the site at one of the busiest streets in the heart of Norway's capital city, Oslo, is rather special. In a first of its kind in the world, all the machinery used on site - excavators, diggers, and loaders - are electric.
Pat Pollifrone found a young deer sitting alone beside his house when he got home from work last week. The mother didn't return so he escorted the deer into nearby woods, but it returned to his driveway in the morning. "So I guess we have a deer now," Pollifrone said. Upon closer look, Pollifrone realized "Bambi" was in need of assistance. He pulled about 30 ticks off her face. Pollifrone's dog Zoey wanted to help out, too. Zoey checked on Bambi every day to let her know she's safe and in good care. However, Pollifrone knew his home was not suitable for a young deer and has, happily, just found a home for Bambi at a local goat farm where she has settled in nicely.
Asia’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, has a $10 billion plan to scale up zero-carbon hardware in India. Reliance Industries, the oil- and refining-heavy conglomerate that he controls, intends to develop four huge gigafactories to manufacture photovoltaic modules, batteries, fuel cells, and - importantly - electrolyzers to produce hydrogen. It’s a big plan, but currently short on details. Still, it bridges two aspects of decarbonization: technologies that exist today and are economical at scale, and those that need a major effort to get to that point.
Carbon capture technologies have great potential for helping in the fight against climate change. Now, the world looks set for a breakthrough moment in carbon capture technologies, with a new facility opening in Scotland in 2026 that will remove up to one million tons of carbon from the air each year. The facility, which will be the largest in the world, will extract the equivalent carbon that would be absorbed by 40 million trees over the course of a year. All of the absorbed carbon will then be deposited in storage sites under the sea.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has chosen a female aerospace pioneer to blast off into space with him later this month. In great news for Wally Funk, who was denied astronaut wings decades ago because of her gender, as she will join Bezos in Blue Origin's New Shephard rocket. The company has announced that the 82-year-old pilot would be aboard the 20 July launch from West Texas, flying in the capsule for the 10-minute hop as an "honoured guest".
Staying on the subject of space: Many people believe, despite 'apparently' no conclusive evidence, that aliens exist. And, as of Wednesday, you can count NASA Administrator Bill Nelson among them, who just admitted to CNN that he believes we may not be alone in the galaxy after reading the classified version of the U.S. intelligence report on Navy pilots' repeated sightings of UFOs. The rest of us earthlings have had to make do with the unclassified report.
After a pretty miserable year (such as the death of her husband and the ghastly Hollywoodesque machinations of her grandson Prince Harry), it's good to see such a picture of the Queen with such a happy demeanour arriving at the Royal Windsor Horse Show yesterday driving her gleaming Range Rover.
Keep an eye out for the OGN Sunday Magazine tomorrow...
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Hesitation
Beautiful Iranian 90 second award-winning film that will bring a lump to your throat and put a spring in your step.