Upbeat News Monday
Kick-starting the week with a global round-up of positive news nuggets.
No School Today
In 1976, U2 played their first gig at a school talent competition, covering Peter Frampton's Show Me The Way and Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers. Now, exactly 50 years after they formed, U2 returned to Dublin to play a gig at the school where they met. "We've escaped from the lab," declared Bono, as the quartet took to a stage in the playground. "How's the experiment working for you?" The pupils of Mount Temple Comprehensive may not have been born when U2 were the world’s biggest band, but they gave them a hero's welcome, waving signs that said, "I love U2", "It's a beautiful day - no school", and, "Bono, my mum says hi!" The group treated the crowd of pupils, parents and teachers to a career-spanning set that included hits like I Will Follow, Vertigo and With Or Without You, as well as their latest single, Silencio.
Some Quick Hits
74: The percentage share of the globe with internet access, up from 40 percent in 2015.
Paid to Read: Singapore will pay its citizens to read for five years in a pilot scheme. The earned amounts are small, but officials are hoping that the gamification encourages people to turn away from short-form video and toward long-form reading.
84.5: The percentage of households now connected to electricity in Rwanda, up from 64.5 percent five years ago. The country is targeting universal access by 2029.
Fur-Free: New York just hosted its first fur-free fashion week. The industry event followed counterparts in Milan and London in no longer promoting fur on their runways, events, websites, and social media. Meanwhile, NYC has just filled its 200,000th pothole since January, at a clip of around 3,000 a week.
“Beijing Miracle”: China’s clean-air campaign has cut Beijing’s smog by 70 percent in a decade, and cut heavily polluted days from 58 a year to just one, generating $715 billion in cumulative health benefits. The UN Environment Programme calls it the “Beijing Miracle” and officials from neighbouring countries are now visiting to study how it was done.
No Pilot: 99 years after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, a converted Cessna Caravan has flown itself across North America from California to North Carolina, handling its own taxiing, take-offs, navigation and landings over a 4,988 km (3,100 mile) route, with a human on board only because regulations require it.
Victory in Vietnam
Vietnam has created a reserve for one of the world’s rarest primates. The Kim Bang Delacour’s Langur Species and Habitat Conservation Area covers 12.5 square miles of limestone karst that underlie their forest habitat. These outcrops were being eyed by quarrying companies that wanted to turn them into cement. The nearby Van Long Nature Reserve, created in 2001, has seen the species’ population quadruple from 50 to around 200 since then. Fewer than 300 Delacour’s langurs remain in the wild, which is why conservationists have been pushing for this new reserve for years.
30 x 30 "Within Reach"
The global goal to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030 is within reach, but governments must accelerate action to achieve it. That’s according to a just published major review of the policy. It found that around 20 percent of land and inland waters are already designated protected. Existing commitments, it adds, would increase that to 27 percent by 2030 - just shy of the target. “Real progress is being made,” said Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature. “Countries have expanded protected and conserved areas around the world - safeguarding critical ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves.” However, the Global Assessment 30×30 report warns that progress for our oceans is much slower and needs a major push immediately.
Not One, But Two
Your brain isn’t one organ, it’s two, stitched together in the womb. Stanford researchers found that the forebrain and midbrain (which handle language and reasoning) and the hindbrain (which runs breathing and heartbeat) grow from two entirely different progenitor cells - a divide that has held for 550 million years of evolution. “Our research suggests that evolution took two existing neural systems and pushed them together spatially. Having the brain as one organ would probably be more efficient, but we rely on this primordial way to make the brain as two separate pieces.” But, don't worry, we are in good company as the same split shows up in chickens, zebrafish and acorn worms.
Landmine Clearance
Some 27 years after the Kosovo War ended, a humanitarian mission to clear the country of landmines has concluded. The Halo Trust, a mine-clearance charity, announced this week that its work in the country was done, claiming the cleared land has “paved the way for Kosovo’s recovery”. Cleared land has paved the way for agriculture and infrastructure projects, helping the country’s post-war economy to flourish. According to the World Bank, average life expectancy is now 78 - just one year less than it is in the US. “Kosovo shows us that the real impact of removing landmines and cluster bombs is not measured in hectares cleared, but in what that land makes possible over time,” said Atholl Stewart, programme manager for Halo Kosovo.
"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." F. Scott Fitzgerald
On This Day
28 September 1066: William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy (pictured), lands at Pevensey Bay in Sussex, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. King Harold Godwinson had just defeated a Viking army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire on 25 September. Upon hearing of the landing, Harold marched his exhausted army roughly 241 miles south to meet William at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066.
Today's Articles
That Special Teacher: everyone lucky enough to have had a teacher that truly impacted, or even changed, their life will identify with this story.
Mood Boosting Video
Giant NYC Model: Truck driver spent two decades building a scale model of his native New York City in his free time.
