Good News Tuesday

Editor OGN Daily
4 days ago
3 min read

Keeping the week on track with Tuesday's smorgasbord of tasty news nuggets.

"Cultural Fantasy"

George Lucas has amassed 50 years of cool stuff, and now he’s going to have a place to put it. Even better, you can see it, too. Original sketches, paintings and assorted illustrations from the Star Wars creator’s personal collection - plus quite a bit representing that galaxy far, far away - will be on display at the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The building is under construction in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, will open in 2026, and is dedicated to “cultural fantasy,” Lucas said. Variety reports that the museum is also set to feature artwork and never-before-seen pieces from Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Jessie Willcox Smith and more. Lucas described the forthcoming museum as a "temple to artists".

Livingstone's Fruit Bat being held in someone's hand — Pteropus livingstonii | Bat Conservation International via Dr. Isabella Mandl

Extinction Averted

“Big, fluffy, and dopey-looking,” the Livingstone's Fruit Bat is a species of flying fox that's endemic to only two islands in the world: Anjouan and Mohéli, off the African coast in the Western Indian Ocean. They have long been critically endangered in the wild, except, thanks to the work of a local NGO, that's not a thing anymore. Conservation Optimism credits GPS tracking, rainforest restoration and community forestry.

Marine Reserves

Spain now protects around 25 percent of its waters after adding five new marine reserves, as part of its drive to hit 30 percent by 2023. EuroWeekly reports that the new reserves are: the submarine mountains of the Mallorca Channel, the Seco de Palos seamounts, the Capbreton canyons, the Alborán Sea banks, and the Central Catalan Coast marine space. The expansion also includes plans for the Mar de las Calmas National Park and the sperm whale breeding area north of Menorca.

Preventive Medicine

A trove of one billion MRI images is now open to researchers worldwide. UK Biobank just finished a decade-long whole-body imaging project, capturing 12,000 scans from 100,000 volunteers across organs, vessels and bones. Early studies show the scans can flag dozens of diseases years before symptoms; scientists say the data set will transform preventive medicine by revealing how ageing and pathology evolve in unprecedented detail.

Disease Elimination

Global progress on trachoma elimination is one of the best things you've never heard about. The number of people afflicted worldwide by this bacterial eye infection that can lead to blindness has fallen from 2.8 million in 2016 to 1.2 million in 2025. The pool of those at risk is shrinking fast too, falling from 192 million in 2015 to 102 million in 2025. In the last 12 months alone, seven countries have eliminated the disease altogether. It's one of the best global health stories, but you probably didn't know about it because it tends to be buried deep inside technical WHO reports.

Coal Collapse

Global coal cargoes shrank by 6 percent in the first half of 2025, reports MarineLink. Doesn’t sound like much, but that drop erased 46 million tons of trade, kicking the chair out from underneath a trade that has long kept bulk carriers busy across the Pacific. Plus, Reuters reports that sanctions are squeezing Russia’s coal sector toward bankruptcy with the government warning that 30 companies risk insolvency after devastating losses in 2024; and in the United States, coal-burning utilities have retired six times more capacity than they’ve built this century: with coal generation down 65 percent from its 2010 peak; analysts say cheaper renewables and batteries should keep the doors firmly shut on new plants.