Kicking off the week with a selection of good news snippets.
This year nearly 1,800 photographers from across the US and Canada submitted more than 6,000 images to the 11th annual Audubon Photography Awards. The expert judging panel must have had a difficult task choosing just six winners - all pictured above. If you would like to see them in large format, click here.
South Australia just set a global record: It's just became the world’s largest region to meet all of its energy needs from solar power.
Positive news for eco-conscious travellers this week with the announcement that HS1 is to become the first trainline in the UK to run exclusively on renewables. The rail operator also pledged to be carbon neutral within a decade.
Feeding democracy - literally. With the US elections in full swing and social distancing being the norm, Pizza to the Polls is on hand to feed voters queuing up to cast their ballot in disadvantaged areas with a free warm meal.
Venice’s new €5.5 billion flood defences - named after Moses - have just saved La Serenissima for the second time in 1,200 years. OGN reported on the first successful defence a couple of weeks ago.
Time in nature is valuable for children’s physical and mental health, so a daycare centre in Finland decided to create a playground that replicated the forest floor - with remarkable results.
Truces between nations have more chance of succeeding if women are involved in peace talks. That’s according to research by UN Women and the Council on Foreign Relations, which found that armistices were 64 percent less likely to fail when women had a seat at the table.
Vast heavenly fortune: NASA to check out an asteroid that might be a failed planet and, crammed with precious metals, may potentially be worth more than our global economy.
It seems that we have rediscovered the pleasure of reading during the last few months. According to publisher Bloomsbury, lockdown readers have boosted its profits by 60 per cent.
Whether you love it or loathe it, Erno Rubik's invention shows no sign of diminishing in popularity as yet another generation of gamer's are taking up the challenge. It's estimated that the Rubik’s Cube is now played by more than a billion people, and 480 million units of Rubik’s Cubes are expected to be sold globally this year alone. And you'll be astonished by the new world record for completing the puzzle.
People in the UK are becoming more liberal about welfare and immigration, according to the latest British Social Attitudes survey. The proportion of people who think benefits are too high fell from 59 percent in 2015 to 35 percent today. The proportion of people who think immigration undermines Britain’s cultural life, meanwhile, fell from 40 percent to 19 percent.
A plan to store some of the world’s most endangered corals would enable conservationists to revive damaged reefs in the future. The proposed Biobank facility near the Great Barrier Reef, would allow marine biologists to store, study and breed from endangered corals. The ‘Noah’s ark’ scheme was inspired by Norway’s global seed vault.
Presumably both Trump and Biden will be listening to Fleetwood Mac's Dreams tonight. Either way, what a delicious tune to kick start the week.
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