Uplifting collection of good news nuggets to get the week off to a bright start.
Two men from the Solomon Islands who spent 29 days lost at sea after their GPS tracker stopped working have been rescued off the coast of Papua New Guinea - 400 km away from where their journey began. One of them has taken some positives away from the experience. “I had no idea what was going on while I was out there. I didn’t hear about Covid or anything else,” he said. “I look forward to going back home but I guess it was a nice break from everything.”
Nearly 20 years ago, volunteers from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya found a newborn elephant, stranded and alone in the wild. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. In the trust’s nursery, Sunyei, as they named the elephant, met the head keeper Benjamin who was responsible for the day-to-day care and welfare of the orphans, making sure that they are well looked after. Under Benjamin’s care, Sunyei grew up happy and healthy. In 2009, she chose to return to the wild. To the staff’s amazement, a decade after she left, Sunyei emerged from the wild one morning to pay Benjamin a visit. She even brought her newborn baby, whom she wanted to introduce to her old friend. “... it seems she has never forgotten the kindness that was shown to her,” said the Trust's director.
A commission of the California state parks has unanimously voted to change the name of a state park in northern California from Patrick's Point to Sue-Meg, marking one of the most significant Indigenous name restorations in the American west and earning comparisons to the 2015 restoration of Alaska’s Denali mountain – the highest peak in North America. It's the product of decades of arduous work by Yurok Tribe members in reclaiming and rejuvenating their language.
Throughout this week, McDonald’s will be making school day mornings a little brighter for educators and showing their appreciation with a free breakfast Thank You Meal. Teachers, administrators or school staff can simply head to any participating McDonald’s during breakfast hours from 11 to 15 October and show a valid work ID for a free breakfast.
Big engines, massive torque, big heavy tires, and hardly ever leaving third gear means fossil fuels from farm machinery are a massive contributor to agricultural emissions, and Auga Group’s biomethane-electric hybrid tractor will go a long way towards reducing them. Auga reckons that about 30 percent of their farm emissions came from fossil fuel guzzling machinery. And they should know, as Auga - based in Lithuania - is Europe’s largest vertically integrated organic food producer, and the new tractor, the Auga M1, is the world’s first totally-green tractor, designed as a hybrid to ensure that farmers can run from dawn to dusk.
Dark matter is flowing through you, right now. This mysterious, invisible stuff makes up more than 80 percent of the universe, an elusive web of particles that pass freely through matter. To observe it, you have to get rid of all the interference. To study the stuff of the universe, you have to block the universe out. That’s what the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics is doing a kilometre underground, in a disused part of a goldmine under the town of Stawell in regional Victoria. There, a cavern is being transformed into a lab for dark matter hunters, and it is on track to be finished by the end of the year.
Did you know? Which American states are furthest north, south, east and west? If you answer Hawaii and Alaska, you would be correct. Hawaii is furthest south. Alaska is furthest north. But how can Alaska be the westernmost state in the United States and its easternmost state? It's due to the fact that it stretches so far to the west that it falls into the eastern hemisphere. In fact, Semisopochnoi Island, part of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, is technically the easternmost spot in all of North America.
Dive in Deeper
Monday's Video
A magical little time-lapse film showing the lifecycle of a dandelion.