Good News Worth Celebrating
- Editor OGN Daily
- 8 hours ago
- 6 min read
Quick summary of all last week's top good news stories to help ensure it's a sunny Sunday.
Health & Wellbeing
Artificial Blood: For decades, a shrinking population and an aging society in Japan have led to fewer blood donors. Recognizing this, researchers at Nara Medical University are developing a safe, effective artificial blood that could be administered to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Clinical trials begin this year, with practical use expected by 2030.
Care Transformation: A landmark international study has found that structured exercise after cancer treatment can cut a patient's risk of death by 37 percent and disease recurrence by 28 percent - results more effective than many drugs. Experts say the findings will likely transform global cancer care guidelines and highlight exercise as a powerful low-risk intervention.
Coffee: A new study by Harvard reveals how much you should drink in order to age healthily.
Nature Prescription: Healthcare staff will start encouraging patients to enjoy nature and the outdoors in a new scheme in central England. More than 40 health organisations have received training and free booklets to share with people they support in the hope of boosting their well-being. The launch follows successful projects in other parts of the UK since 2022.
Art & Entertainment
Vincent van Gogh: A new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden celebrates the Dutch painter’s love of nature. The show features the living flowers that inspired van Gogh, as well as monumental reinterpretations by contemporary artists.
Museo Casa Kahlo: A new museum dedicated to the early life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is opening in Mexico City. “This museum isn’t just about her work - it’s about her world,” Frida Hentschel Romeo, Kahlo’s great-grand-niece, told Vogue.
Finally Getting Her Due: Mary Abbott was an integral part of New York City’s Abstract Expressionists - the mid-century avant-garde art scene - but her better-known male colleagues (like Rothko) have long dominated the movement’s legacy. A new exhibition seeks to change that.
Downton Abbey: In good news for Downton fans, the final movie in the Downton Abbey franchise - The Grande Finale - is being released in September. Here's the trailer.
Wildlife & Conservation
Golden Eagles Return: Twitchers are aflutter after golden eagles were spotted soaring above northern England for the first time in years. The raptors were hunted to extinction in England during the 19th century.
'Humpback Highway': Every winter, Australia’s “humpback highway” bursts into life and demonstrates the remarkable recovery of these majestic marine creatures. Once hunted to near extinction, humpback whales have made an amazing recovery with population estimates now at around 40,000.
Habitat Protection: California has approved $59.5 million in funding to preserve some of the state’s most ecologically significant habitats. In the face of federal funding cuts for some of the country’s critical habitats for rare plants and animals, the money will preserve 23,000 acres of some of the state’s most ecologically important habitats, including the Salton Sea.
Win For Nature: A vast new ocean reserve has been created off the coast of Patagonia in Argentina. Spanning 1,140 square miles, Patagonia Azul Provincial Park encompasses vibrant ecosystems that support a dizzying array of marine life, including seabirds, whales and seals.
Criminalising Ecocide: Scotland is poised to become the first UK nation to criminalise ecocide - severe and reckless harm to nature - with potential penalties including up to 20 years in prison for individuals and unlimited fines for companies.
"Amazing" Discovery: A possum species thought to be extinct in New South Wales has been spotted on a camera-trap in the state in south east Australia. The leadbeater’s possum relies on dense, damp areas in old-growth forest and nests in hollows that take more than 150 years to form. Dr Fred Ford said it was “amazing to see that distinctive bushy tail waving among the rows of images on the screen”.
Second Chance: Four female eastern lowland gorillas are roaming free in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, marking the largest reintroduction of the subspecies in history. As babies, they were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and, following years of rehab, they were deemed ready for the wild.
1904: That was the last year in which scientists observed a species of cottontail rabbit native to Mexico, before it was just rediscovered and taken off the extinction list.
Remarkable Comeback: Though native to California, after 1924, a gray wolf was not documented in California until 2011, when a wolf known as OR-7 famously crossed the state line from Oregon. Now, three new packs have been discovered in a remote region in the Sierra Nevada.
Science & Space
"Cosmic Miracle": The James Webb Space Telescope has peered back in time 13.5 billion years to make yet another discovery - the most distant object known to humanity.
Antimatter Matters: CERN is preparing to ship antimatter - yes, actual antimatter. Until now, antimatter research has been confined to a few labs, and its transport was considered impossible. That’s about to change, says Ars Technica. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is preparing to ship tiny quantities of antihydrogen to research institutes across Europe. Why does this matter? Antimatter is central to some of physics’ biggest unsolved questions - like why the universe exists at all. Sharing it could democratise access to fundamental experiments, and increase our understanding of the asymmetry between matter and antimatter that created the cosmos.
Climate & Renewable Energy
Energy Milestone: CleanTechnica reports that South America just achieved a remarkable energy milestone, quietly setting a global benchmark: for the first time in history, the entire continent now has zero new coal-fired power plants planned. Coal, once perceived as a staple of industrialization and economic stability, has essentially vanished from the continent’s energy future.
Exclusive Club: Vatican City has joined the 100 percent renewables club. The Vatican has become the world’s latest state to be powered entirely by renewables, with solar installations now supplying all electricity (thanks, Pope Francis!). It joins a growing group that includes Iceland, Bhutan, and Ethiopia.
Sleek Curb Charger: The unobtrusive street-level charger - from German company Rheinmetall - replaces concrete curbs with a charge point. The steel and aluminium module includes a 4G modem and Ethernet.
Aussie Renewables: For decades, Australia’s energy grid has been stubbornly coal dependent, but a rapid shift is now underway. According to figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the country had its greenest quarter in the first three months of 2025, with renewables providing 43 percent of the nation’s electricity.
6 Percent: The share of electricity in Greece that comes from coal, down from about 50 percent in 2014. Solar and wind have replaced it; their share has tripled in the last decade; when combined, they’ve become the largest source. As a result, says OurWorldinData, the country’s CO2 emissions from coal have fallen by nearly 90 percent from their peak, and national emissions as a whole have halved.
Soaring Solar: China added 105 GW of solar in the first four months of the year - more in 120 days, than the total installed capacity to date of nearly every other country on Earth. Meanwhile, India added more renewable capacity in the past year than coal, gas, and nuclear combined, with solar alone accounting for 70 percent of all new electricity generation.
Corporate Liability: A German court just melted one of Big Oil’s key climate defences. Germany’s top civil court has dismissed a lawsuit by a Peruvian farmer against energy giant RWE, but confirmed that private companies can be held liable for their share of climate damages - the core idea of corporate accountability for emissions. Legal experts say it could fundamentally shift who pays for climate damages - from taxpayers, to polluters.
Funny Stories
New Acronyms: President Donald Trump might be known for his snappy acronyms, but various hefty financial newspapers are reporting that investors are using four-letter descriptors of their own to ridicule Trump's trade policies.
Smart Cockatoos: The ingenious birds have worked out how to operate drinking fountains designed for humans for seemingly no other reason - according to a new study - than the fun of the challenge.
Funny Tweets: The internet, unsurprisingly, is having an absolute field day about Elon and Donald's hilarious hissy fit.
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