OGN Friday

Editor OGN Daily
20 minutes ago
3 min read

Wrapping up the week with a collection of upbeat news stories.

guillemots appearing to be arguing — Credit: Warren Price | Nikon Comedy Wildlife finalist

Shut Your Beak

Rival guillemots air their disagreement on a cliff edge in Hornøya, Norway. “Headlock”, taken by British photographer Warren Price, is among the pictures shortlisted for this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife prize. Click the link to take a look at all the other finalists. Guaranteed to gie you a good chuckle. Winners will be announced in December.

Foreign Aid

Private donors gave more than $125 million to keep foreign aid programs running after the Trump administration’s cuts, reports ABC News. Project Resource Optimization identified 80 foreign aid projects to solicit help from private donors, and all of them are now funded, with more than $110 million mobilized in charitable grants and $15 million in other emergency funds.

November Meteors

The Southern Taurid Meteor Shower has two peaks: the first was in mid-October, and the second is coming up in early November. While this is typically a low-frequency meteor shower, around five shooting stars per hour, 2025 is expected to be one of those rare fireball swarm years, when exceptionally bright meteors - some shining brighter than Venus - light up the sky. So, this is the year to try to catch them. The best time to look up is the night of November 4 into the early hours of November 5.

New RNA Tool

Scientists have developed a new RNA tool that will help improve cancer and infectious disease research and treatment. Their findings could help everything from accelerating disease research and enabling more precise diagnostics to guiding the development of more effective medical treatments for diseases such as cancer and antibiotic-resistant infections.

Woolly rhino horn — Credit: Mammoth Museum, Yakutsk

Largest Ever

In the far-flung reaches of Yakutia, a rugged corner of Russia that bears the title of the coldest inhabited place on Earth, mysteries lurk beneath the frozen soil. A local hunter uncovered one of those mysteries last summer. While walking along a stream in the tundra, he spotted something emerging from the melting permafrost: a skull and a massive, curved horn poking out of the ground, says NatGeo. He dug up the frozen remains and took them to the Mammoth Museum in the regional capital, where many creatures pulled from the icy ground are stored and studied. Scientists at the museum determined the skull belonged to a 19,700-year-old woolly rhino. When it roamed the area, it would have been as heavy as an SUV and cloaked in a shaggy coat. The researchers measured the horn at a whopping 5 feet 5 inches long. They then conducted a comprehensive review of every recorded rhino horn, both living and extinct. From their analysis they determined that the newly unearthed woolly rhino horn is the largest animal horn ever discovered - a finding they published last month in the Journal of Zoology.

First UDC

China has completed the first phase of construction of what it claims is the world's first underwater data center (UDC). Located near Shanghai and with a price tag of roughly $226 million, it's a significant milestone in the quest for sustainable solutions to the growing energy demands of China’s computing infrastructure. The good news is that it's powered by wind turbines and, since data centres are notorious for giving off lots of heat, the UDC uses ocean water to stay cool.

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Seth Godin

On This Day

31 October 1941: After nearly 15 years of work, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota was completed; the colossal sculpture features the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.