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Good News Today

Updated: Nov 26, 2021

Thursday's golden collection of upbeat news to ensure your day gets off to a bright start.

  • It’s official: 131 gold coins found in a field in Norfolk, England, represent the largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard ever discovered, a find which is being described as one of “international importance.” With the first coin found in 1991, and the rest found in 2014, the hoard has been undergoing Treasure Review by the antiquities authority. A stamped pendant, gold ingot, and two unidentified pieces accompanied the coins, which shed golden light on not only the wealth enjoyed by pre-Viking East Anglian society, but the reach and value of their trade routes, and the development of widespread minting in Europe. Dated to around 610 CE, it’s thought they were buried together in a funeral barrow, and scattered across a field through centuries of plowing. Ten of the coins arrived in England from the Byzantine Empire, while the other 120 were made in France during the Merovingian Dynasty.

  • A “long-held dream” of science was realized when a team of researchers from Spain and Utah coordinated to restore basic vision to a blind women by connecting a camera to an array of microchips to her brain. Sightless for 16 years, 57-year-old Berna Gomez was able to identify letters and the edges of objects, as well as play basic video games, and was so instrumental in proving both safety and efficacy of the treatment that the scientists named her a co-author in the corresponding paper. If vision could be bypassed by technology, it would represent one of the largest developments in the history of prosthesis, potentially restoring the sight of 148 million blind people worldwide.

  • As the temperatures drop and the nights start to draw in, the last thing on most people’s minds is finding ways to feel colder. But, according to research, it might be a good idea to crawl out from under the blanket, turn down the thermostat and teach your body to warm up instead. Studies suggest that as well as providing a way to beat the fuel price rises this winter and doing your bit for the environment, adapting to the cold could also be good for your health, with benefits ranging from weight control (by fat burning) to better mental health and a healthier immune system.

  • Act of kindness: A group of avid rugby fans from Wales had plans to go to Wales’ Six Nations game when at the last minute, one of the friends canceled his visit. Rather than selling the spare ticket, the group decided to make someone’s day for free.⁠ On their way to the game, they saw a homeless man named Simon and offered him to join them to the match Wales vs Italy.⁠ During the game, the group bought Simon a few drinks and a hot dog. “He cried during the anthem,” Jonathan Morgan, 50, commented. “He said it was one of the best things that had ever happened to him.”⁠ Jonathan’s daughter, Natassja, snapped a photo of Simon and Jonathan at the stadium and posted it on Twitter. “Couldn’t be prouder of my dad… “ she wrote. “...The smile says it all.”⁠

  • Four Latin American countries have agreed to merge their marine reserves to form one mega-reserve that will protect one of the world’s richest regions of ocean biodiversity. The pacific-facing countries of Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica have announced the creation of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, uniting and expanding the size of their protected territorial waters. The fishing-free corridor would cover more than 500,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles) along with one of the most important migratory routes for sea turtles, whales, sharks, and rays.

  • An Italian design studio is making a line of small river and lake boats inspired by some of the best classic cars ever made. The models are super-accurately rendered from fiberglass, and mounted to a vide variety of pontoon shapes and sizes to go with your local freshwater source - whether a wide choppy lake or a narrow and silent canal. Floating Motors by Studio Lazzarini will create something bespoke for you, or you can float away in a VW Camper Van, a Mini or for the James Bonds amongst you, an Aston Martin DB5.

  • "By 2030 in the United States, we won’t have coal," John Kerry, US climate envoy, told Bloomberg in an interview at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. "We will not have coal plants."

  • A US judge used some startling words when ruling that a congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot can access some of Donald Trump’s White House records. The former US president argued the materials were covered by executive privilege, which protects the confidentiality of some White House communications. However, the judge declared that “presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president”.

  • The BBC licence fee is set to remain frozen at £159 in a bid to help Brits alleviate the strain of rising energy and household bills. The Telegraph has been told that negotiations between the BBC and the Government on the cost of the licence fee from 2022 until at least 2027 are expected to conclude later this month.

  • George Harrison's childhood home in Liverpool where the Beatles rehearsed in their early days is going up for auction for £160,000 / $217,000). The Harrison family moved into the house in Upton Green when George was six years old. They spent 12 years in the terraced property and it was where he and his friends Paul McCartney and John Lennon held their first band rehearsals. Omega Auctions expects the 3 bedroom house will be bought by someone hoping to turn it into a museum.

  • Wise Words: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry - "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."


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