Global round up of positive news nuggets to help get the week off to a sunny start.
Novel Coffin Designs
A Scottish funeral company wants to “break the taboo” of talking about death by offering custom-made coffins, including a casket designed like a Greggs sausage roll. The bosses at Go As You Please said other casket concepts include the Doctor Who Tardis, a pint of Tennent’s Lager and a bottle of Bell’s whisky. “Most of our coffin designs come from having honest conversations with the person when they are still alive,” a boss told Sky News. “We’re not dealing with novelty, we’re dealing with individuality,” he added.
The Pace of Solar
Here's a heartening indication of just how quickly the pace of solar energy generation, according to FutureCrunch, is accelerating:
1 GW per year in 2004
1 GW per month in 2010
1 GW per week in 2016
1 GW per day in 2023
In the last ten years, solar has grown at an average rate of 30 percent annually. Solar energy is forecast to be the world’s largest single source of electricity by 2027.
Sunny Outlook: Last year, the world built more new solar capacity than every other power source combined. At this rate, solar provides a very positive outlook for mankind. Reasons for optimism...
Gorgeously Quirky
Fiat has taken a trip down memory lane to launch its own version of the quirky Citroën Ami unveiled in 2020. Called Topolino, the electric two-seater (it's not legally considered a car) shares its basic proportions with its French sibling but features a retro-inspired exterior design. The name wasn't chosen randomly: Topolino (which means "little mouse" in Italian) was the nickname given to the original 500 built between 1936 and 1955. The first-generation model's contribution to the project stops there. Essentially, it's a tiny, city-only electric runabout, full of retro styling cues, and expected to be available in a few weeks time at a price of around €10,000 (about $10,700).
Cancer Success
An experimental treatment developed at Israel's Hadassah-University Medical Center has a 90 percent success rate at bringing patients with multiple myeloma into remission. It's the second most common hematological disease, accounting for one-tenth of all blood cancers. The innovative treatment against the disease, which has long been considered incurable, was developed after a series of experiments carried out in the hospital’s bone-marrow transplant and immunotherapy department in recent years.
Food Delivery Robot
For the past year, Uber-backed Serve Robotics' wheeled robots have been delivering takeout food and groceries to customers in the Los Angeles area. The company has now announced that up to 2,000 of the bots are set to enter use with Uber Eats in other North American cities. In both LA and San Francisco, the autonomous sidewalk-going robots have "completed tens of thousands of contactless deliveries" since Serve's foundation in 2017.
East Africa Crude
The campaign to stop the $5 billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline is working. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, one of the project's key financial advisors and joint lead arranger, has pulled out. This follows a similar recent announcement by South Africa's Standard Bank, one of the project's other lead financiers.
"Common sense is not so common." Voltaire
On this Day
5 June 1849: The absolute monarchy in Denmark was abolished and replaced by a new constitution that established a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, as well as freedom of the press, religious freedom, and the right to hold meetings and form associations.
Parents in an Irish town band together to tell their children they can't have a smartphone until secondary school. Smart initiative...
Domestic heat pumps are increasingly popular with home owners, but commercial heat pumps are now capable of serving entire towns. Highly efficient...
Mood Booster
Timelapse journey across Arizona: Enjoy some epic vistas of well-known landmarks as well as hidden places across state 48.