Sunny Saturday News

Editor OGN Daily
Aug 23
4 min read

Celebrating the start of the weekend with some positive news nuggets.

Are You an Otrovert?

If introverts look inwards, and extroverts outwards, where do otroverts look? “Their fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that anyone else is facing,” says Rami Kaminski, the American psychiatrist, who came up with the term. He says some examples of otroverts from history are George Orwell, Frida Kahlo, Franz Kafka, and Albert Einstein.

Evolving Language

“We only add words where we think they'll have staying power. Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the Dictionary,” says Colin McIntosh, Lexical Programme Manager, Cambridge Dictionary. "Skibidi", "tradwife" and "delulu" are among the social media slang terms making their way into the Cambridge Dictionary. The online lexicon is adding 6,000 new words to its database, several of them derived from internet culture. "Tradwife" and "delulu" are fairly straightforward (contractions of "traditional wife" and "delusional"), while "skibidi" is "a gibberish term" that "can mean 'cool' or 'bad" or have "no real meaning" at all, said The Associated Press.

Cheaper Books

Denmark is to stop charging VAT on books in an attempt to get more people reading. At 25 percent, the country’s tax rate on books is the highest in the world, a policy the government believes is contributing to a growing “reading crisis”. The culture minister has announced that the government would propose in its budget bill that the tax on books be removed. Other Other Nordic countries also charge a standard rate of 25 percent VAT, but it does not apply to books.

Rita Ebel in her wheelchair — Credit: Rita Ebel

Rita's Ramps

Thirty years ago, Rita Ebel was in a car accident that left her requiring a wheelchair. But in her hometown in Germany, Ebel found that most businesses were inaccessible to her after her accident. So she took matters into her own hands, building wheelchair ramps of her own design out of something rather more joyful than wood or concrete: Lego bricks. Quickly priced out of her building material of choice, Ebel took to social media to ask for help - and the donations came pouring in. Her landlord even offered up some extra space to help her efforts to make the community more accessible. “There is no situation that is just bad,” Ebel told Ability Magazine. “We all need to find this tiny good part in the negative circumstance ourselves.”

Old Man Builds Bench for Sick Wife: Whilst that may not be the most exciting headline you've ever read, it is - never the less - a very sweet story about an old married couple in Spain.

Say Hello to Pluto

This tiny Philippine spotted deer, a new addition to the U.K.’s Chester Zoo, may stand at just under a foot tall, but the fawn represents a big win for the endangered species. Only about 300 Philippine spotted deer remain in the wild due to threats from habitat loss and hunting. These deer have rotating ears that scan for sounds in their surroundings, sharp hooves that allow them to run swiftly, and spotted fur that helps them camouflage.

Researcher holding a small fragment of meteor — Credit: Andrew Davis Tucker

Close Shave

Imagine sipping your coffee when suddenly - BOOM! A sonic tremor rattles your home. That’s exactly what happened to one Atlanta resident when a meteorite the size of a cherry tomato punched through his roof, shredded his HVAC duct, and embedded itself in his floor with the force of a close-range gunshot. Now, thanks to analysis by researchers at the University of Georgia, the age of this McDonough Meteorite is estimated to be 4.56 billion years. It means it is older than the Earth and likely originated from a massive asteroid breakup in the central belt between Mars and Jupiter some 470 million years ago. Before it became a living room guest, the meteorite was a bolide, a blazing fireball hurtling toward Earth at over 1 km (0.62 miles) per second. Though Earth's atmosphere slowed it down, it still packed enough punch to pulverize flooring into dust.

"The dog doesn’t know the difference between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I have to walk the dog early those days too." Donna Shalala

On This Day

23 August 2023: India became the fourth country - after Russia, America and China -

to land a spacecraft on the Moon; its Chandrayaan-3 probe (Chandrayaan is Hindi for “moon craft”) was also the first to land in the Moon's south polar region.