Good News Today | 31 March 2022

Getting the day off to an upbeat start with a global collection of good news nuggets.

Kaleidoscope

A team of divers has discovered a wondrous marine organism that changes itself from clear to a kaleidoscope of colour. One of the mysteries of the seas, jelly creature Cestum veneris has a sophisticated mechanism for keeping safe from predators, wrapping itself in layers around a delicate centre. That still doesn’t explain exactly why it changes from transparent to glowing colours in a couple of minutes. Could it just be for show?

Record Breaker

A London lawyer has set a new world record for the fastest ever female solo row across the Atlantic in an effort to “show women and girls anything is possible.” Victoria Evans rowed into Barbados on aboard her 22-foot-long rowing boat (7m), after 40 days at sea. The 35 year old began her adventure in the Canary Islands with no idea that she would slash the current standing World Record by a whopping nine days. The endeavour raised money for the UK charity Women in Sport.

Act of Kindness

Miranda Maclean from Michigan tells the story of her neighbor Jim. He had trouble deciding if he wanted to retire from the construction field until he ran into a younger man he’d worked with previously. The man had a wife and three children, and was finding it difficult to make ends meet as he hadn’t worked in some time. The next morning Jim went to the union office and submitted his retirement paperwork. As for his replacement, he gave them the name of the struggling young man. That was six years ago, and that young husband and father has been employed ever since.

Resistance Art

Max Kiderov is a Ukrainian street artist who lives in Nova Kakhovka. The city has now become Russian-occupied. Having used up all of his canvasses before the troops invaded, inspiration struck him when he came across an abandoned and burnt-out Russian tank. With the help of some other residents, Kilderov turned the broken symbol of occupation into a work of art, spray painting it with the swirling white pattern that is one of his signature looks. "All my life before the war was just painting," he said. "After the war starts, I keep creating and making some good things for the people."

Mountain goat with enormous spiral horns and a bushy beard

Conservation Success

Pakistan is well-known for its markhor which inhabit the highest mountains and are distinguished by its nimble and sure-footed nature, as well as its long winter coat and massive spiral horns that can reach more than 1.5m (150 inches) in length on males. Markhor was listed as an endangered species by the IUCN in 1994 due to overhunting for meat and horns, and its population was estimated to be less than 2,500 at the time. However, according to the most recent government data, years of conservation efforts have paid off and there are now estimated to be 6,000 of these magnificent wild goats.

Longest and Tallest

The Çanakkale Bridge has been completed in Turkey with a span of 2,023 metres, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world. Open to traffic over the Dardanelles waterway, the massive structure and the distinctive 318-metre-high red towers from which the bridge's concrete deck is suspended are also the tallest of any suspension bridge in the world.

Superchargers

In good news for drivers of electric vehicles in the UK, Tesla is set to open its UK network of Superchargers to owners of other EVs ‘within weeks’, the UK Transport Minister says, adding that the US firm “recognises it is part of the solution” to the need for a rapid increase in public charger availability. Tesla’s Superchargers are currently only accessible to owners of Tesla models; the Supercharger network is regularly rated as among the best EV charging networks and can charge five times faster than the most common public rapid chargers. There are around 800 such devices in the UK.

Quote of the Day

"If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present." Roy Bennett

On this Day

31 March 1889: The 984 foot (300m) Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron technological masterpiece created by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the centenary of the French Revolution, was officially inaugurated in Paris.