OGN Wednesday

Editor OGN Daily
32 minutes ago
4 min read

Mid-week collection of short, upbeat news stories from around the world.

Monochrome album cover for Tyler, The Creator's CHROMAKOPIA — One of the nominees: Tyler, The Creator's CHROMAKOPIA

Album Art Grammy

You may or may not have listened to the most iconic albums in history, but you’ve surely seen their cover art. Think The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, or David Bowie's Aladin Sane - which recently became the most expensive album art ever sold. After all, on top of endeavouring to encapsulate the album’s spirit and giving it a powerful visual identity, they are works of art in their own right. To honour the work surrounding brilliant album covers, it is good to know that the Grammy Awards have created a Best Album Cover category, with the inaugural trophy being handed out at the 2026 ceremony in Los Angeles on 1 February. Check out the Best Album Cover nominees.

Who Was 'Stick Man'?: Mystery of who was the person on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV finally solved.

An Indian lantern fly with yellow dots on its wings — An Indian lantern fly | John J. Wiens

16,000 New Species

Scientists are discovering species quicker than ever before, with more than 16,000 species being discovered each year, a new University of Arizona study has revealed. Such a trend shows no sign of slowing, and researchers behind the new paper predict that biodiversity is much richer than scientists originally thought. "Some scientists have suggested that the pace of new species descriptions has slowed down and that this indicates that we are running out of new species to discover, but our results show the opposite," said Professor John Wiens at the University of Arizona. "‘In fact, we’re finding new species at a faster rate than ever before."

You Couldn't Make It Up

A lawyer in England has been struck off for claiming to have worked 7,511.7 hours over 266 working days - averaging more than 28 hours a day.

Blood Red Moon

A blood red moon will fill the skies across the U.S., Australia and Asia next month. The moon’s ruddy hue is the result of a total lunar eclipse, which NASA says is expected to occur on March 3. The eclipse will best be viewed along the West Coast early in the early hours of the morning. Residents of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle will see totality - when the moon passes entirely into the shadow of the Earth. “Farther east, skywatchers will still be able to see portions of the partial eclipse, but not totality,” according to AccuWeather. Don't worry, OGN will remind you nearer the time. Speaking of which...

Artemis II

Nasa has rolled out a rocket to Cape Canaveral for its mission to take astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The launch window for the Artemis II mission opens on February 6. The 10-day manned mission is set to be the first to travel around the moon and back again since Apollo 17 in 1972, with Nasa’s subsequent Artemis III mission planned to return humans to the lunar surface.

Pink and white flowering stem of Ptilotus senarius — The rediscovered plant's flower | Aaron Bean/iNaturalist

Presumed Extinct

But not any more. An Australian plant thought to be extinct has been rediscovered in northern Queensland after 58 years, with the help of a community-driven species identification smartphone app. Ptilotus senarius, which belongs to a family of flowering plants called Amaranthaceae, is a small, slender shrub endemic to the dry regions of Western Australia. It was last recorded to have been seen in 1967. The rediscovery highlights the power of the iNaturalist app for conservation and biodiversity science, according to a study on the find in the Australian Journal of Botany.

Tyrannosaurus Rex

T Rexes grew much more slowly than previously thought, taking several decades to reach their full size of around eight tonnes, a comprehensive new fossil study revealed. Previously, researchers counted annual growth rings - similar to tree rings - inside fossil leg bones of dinosaurs to estimate how quickly they grew to adulthood and how old they were when they died. Some of the best estimates from previous studies suggested that T Rex typically stopped growing at around age 25. Now, a new study of 17 tyrannosaur specimens, ranging from early juveniles to massive adults, has revealed that the king of carnivores took 40 years to reach their full size.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Albert Einstein

On This Day

21 January 1506: Swiss Guards first arrived at the Vatican as watchmen for the pope. They are considered the world's smallest and oldest active military unit in continuous service, tasked with protecting the Pope and the Apostolic Palace.