Good News Today | 4 Oct 2022

Global round up of good news nuggets to help brighten the day.

Code Cracker

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Sweden's Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution. The Prize committee said he achieved the seemingly impossible task of cracking the genetic code of one of our extinct relatives - Neanderthals. He also performed the "sensational" feat of discovering the previously unknown relative - Denisova. His work helped explore our own evolutionary history and how humans spread around the planet. The Swedish geneticist's work gets to the heart of some of the most fundamental questions - where do we come from and what allowed us, Homo sapiens, to succeed while our relatives went extinct.

Considering a rooster's call can reach 140 decibels or louder, it might leave one to wonder how the rooster itself keeps from going deaf when that noise is coming right out of its beak. It turns out, the farm fowl have built-in earplugs. Researchers found that when a rooster opens its beak to crow, its external auditory canals close off, preventing sound from coming in and doing any damage, says Phys.org

Roger Federer

All tennis fans know that one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Roger Federer, recently announced his retirement from professional tennis following his final match at the Laver Cup in London. But do you know what he posted in Instagram? Here it is: "We all hope for a fairytale ending. Here's how mine went:

Lost my last singles.

Lost my last doubles.

Lost my last team event.

Lost my voice during the week.

Lost my job.

But still, my retirement could not have been more peRFect and I'm so happy with how everything went. So don't overthink that perfect ending, yours will always be amazing in your own way." His post has nearly 1.5 million likes.

Watch: Top 10 'Only Roger Federer' Shots at Wimbledon

Henry Moore sculpture of reclining figure — Credit: Sotheby's

Monstrosity or Genius?

It was labelled “a monstrosity” and a work of art so bad that it deserved to be interred, not displayed. But many more recognised it as a work of genius, Henry Moore considered it one of his finest, and later this year it is expected to break auction records as the most expensive sculpture made by a British artist. Moore’s bronze of a reclining semi-abstract figure stopped people in their tracks when it was first exhibited as a centrepiece of the Festival of Britain in 1951. Sotheby's estimate that it will sell for between $30 - $40 million.

Lentiginous

If you have a lot of freckles, you’re lentiginous.

Important Transition

Queensland is one of Australia’s most coal-producing states, according to Reuters. But that's about to change. The government has announced a $40 billion plan to transition its coal-fired plants to renewable energy by 2035. “Climate change is real. Its impacts are real. Its effect on the future of Queensland now and into the future are real,” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in a statement. “But we need to do more - much, much more - than understand the effects of climate change. We need to do much more than talk about it. We need to act and we need to act in a revolutionary way.”

eNew York

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that the state will follow California in requiring all new vehicles sold by 2035 be zero-emissions, setting in motion the regulatory process to implement a law she signed last year.