OGN Friday

Editor OGN Daily
13 hours ago
3 min read

Wrapping up the week with an eclectic selection of positive news stories.

Iceland rocky valley with a Dalmation caught in a shaft of sunlight — Credit: Bellot Audrey | Refocus International Photographer of The Year

Beacon of Hope

This stunning image by Bellot Audrey, titled 'Land of Light', was captured in Iceland and won Photographer of the Year (Gold Category Winner) - Animals in the Refocus International Photographer of the Year Awards. Audrey said: "We hiked to this location by this Dalmatian. The landscape was completely shrouded in thick gray fog - we couldn’t see a thing. We waited, hoping for a change, but for a while, it seemed like we were entirely alone in an endless void. The sun finally began to break through, like a beacon of hope."

bronze trumpet or carnyx from around 60 AD — Credit: Historic England

Bronze Carnyx

An “extraordinary” iron age war trumpet that may have links to the Celtic tribe led by Boudicca in the period they were battling the invading Roman army has been discovered by archaeologists in England. The bronze trumpet or carnyx is only the third ever found in Britain, and the most complete example discovered anywhere in the world. Fashioned in the shape of a snarling wild animal, the object would have been mounted on a long mouthpiece high above the heads of warriors, allowing it to be sounded to intimidate the enemy in battle. Tantalisingly, the area where the hoard was discovered falls within the territory of the Iceni, the British tribe that in AD 60 staged a fierce but ultimately doomed rebellion led by Boudicca against the Roman army. Archaeologists believe the hoard was buried at some point in the first century AD.

Acid for Anxiety

Last year brought us the first trial demonstrating that the psychedelic drug LSD, in a single high dose, could relieve moderate to severe anxiety for up to three months. This year, reports New Scientist, two major follow-up trials will conclude. If their results are anything like the first’s, LSD may become available in the US as an alternative anxiety treatment to antidepressants and talk therapy sometime in 2027.

Penguins at London Zoo — Orderly queue please | London Zoo

Stocktake

Step right up! This week, the London Zoo kicked off its annual weigh-in that involves wrangling more than 8,000 resident animals, including ants, penguins, lions, and millipedes. This year also happens to be the zoo’s 200th anniversary, so the 2026 “stocktake” is an extra-special one.

Ozempic vs. Obesity

After rising for years, the American obesity rate fell in 2025, as GLP-1 injectables like Ozempic became popular. (The change represents an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese adults compared with three years ago, according to Gallup.) These drugs, which are already turning the tide on the obesity epidemic, are set to become more affordable, accessible, and potentially more potent this year.

Natural 'Fullness': If you want the weight loss effects of Ozempic without the side effects, here are the top five foods to eat so that you can achieve your goals naturally.

A pair of twin mountain gorillas being cradled by their mother — Credit: Virunga National Park

Wild Twins

A pair of twin mountain gorillas has been born in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo - a rare occurrence for the endangered primates, conservationists at Virunga National Park say. The community trackers, who discovered 22-year-old Mafuko hugging her newborns, said the mother and her two baby sons all appeared to be well and healthy. Twin births are thought to account for about 1 percent of all mountain gorilla births. Virunga is Africa's oldest and largest national park and was set up 100 years ago to protect mountain gorillas of which there are fewer than 1,100 left in the wild. They are only found in the Virunga and in national parks over the border in Rwanda and Uganda.

"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere." Van Wilder

On This Day

Portrait of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre

9 January 1839: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre of France proclaimed his invention of the daguerreotype, the first commercially successful form of photography. The French government acquired the rights to the invention in exchange for a lifetime pension for Daguerre and the heir of his former partner, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, after which it was presented to the world "free to France and the whole World."