Good News Tuesday

Editor OGN Daily
33 minutes ago
3 min read

Some bite-sized chunks of upbeat news from around the globe.

Pastry Post

The French post office, La Poste, has created a special-edition stamp in honour of the croissant, which releases the smell of the nation’s bestselling pastry when rubbed. The odour was created by mixing “boulangerie fragrance”, a scent used in products such as candles, with ink. A total of 594,000 stamps have been printed, costing €2.10 each. It is an homage to “the French people's favorite pastry… and French gastronomy,” La Poste states on its website. Despite sounding like a novel idea, this is not the first olfactory stamp introduced by France’s postal system. In 2024, it released a stamp that carried the odour of a freshly baked baguette, again celebrating the heritage of French ovens. Meanwhile, elsewhere in France...

Credit: Boeckermaschinenwerke | Instagram

Louvre Heist

The multi-million dollar jewellery heist from Paris' Louvre museum has left people horrified and captivated in equal measure. Those behind the heist are being tracked down by the police, and much attention has focused on their slick getaway plan, which saw a not-so-subtle cherry picker positioned next to a museum window. Videos and photos of the thieves descending down the basket lift with their hoard have now been viewed millions of times, including by the company that manufactured it. Böcker Maschinenwerke has now seized the marketing opportunity, using images from the heist in an advert captioned: "If you're in a hurry." The ad goes on to say the machinery "carries your treasures up to 400kg", and works "quiet as a whisper thanks to its 230V electric motor".

Lab-Grown Leather

A North Carolina startup found a way to create lab-grown leather from cow cells; it could change the fashion industry. Cultivated Biomaterials has prototyped small goods like jewelry and wallets, made out of leather grown from the skin cells of a cow named Angel, who is very much alive, grazing at an animal sanctuary in upstate New York. The company’s next targets are watch bands and, eventually, handbags as the material’s strength and flexibility improve, reports WRALnews.

River Life Returns

For the first time in more than 100 years, chinook salmon have been spotted swimming around the Chiloquin Basin in Oregon, US. Their return follows the removal of four large hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River - the largest river restoration project in US history - which had long prevented the fish from swimming upstream. “Our fish relatives are finally returning home, a moment generations of maqlaqs [Klamath people] have prayed to see,” said Klamath Tribes chairman William Ray, Jr. “Their journey back is a sacred reminder of resilience, restoration and our responsibility. They have come home. Now it’s our turn to take care of them.”

skeletons display for halloween — Spooky success

Skeletons For St Judes

These spooky decorations are part of a nationwide fundraiser in the US to raise money for children battling cancer, one Halloween display at a time. The movement started five years ago when Jeff Robertson went all out for Halloween with a skeleton-filled display in front of his home in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The decorations drew so much attention from neighbors that Robertson decided to channel the buzz for a cause. He began collecting donations for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by putting QR codes on the decorations - and Skeletons for St. Jude was born. Since then, the Halloween project has evolved into a national movement, with people across the country adding donation prompts to their decoration displays. And as of last week, the initiative had raised $1 million to support children battling cancer.

Trachoma Elimination

Fiji has become the latest nation to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem, the World Health Organization has announced. Trachoma, the world’s leading cause off infectious blindness, is spread via contaminated fingers or flies that have come into contact with the eyes of an infected person. Fiji’s success in defeating the disease follows improvements in water sanitation, increased monitoring and community awareness programmes.

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life but that great consciousness of life." Jack Kerouac

On This Day

28 October 1636: Harvard University, the oldest institute of higher learning in the United States, was founded by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.