Good News Saturday
- Editor OGN Daily
- Aug 9
- 4 min read
Ensuring it's a sunny Saturday with today's selection of upbeat news stories.
New Prodigy
It’s not that anyone ever said sophisticated math problems can’t be solved by teenagers who haven’t finished high school. But the odds of such a result would have seemed long. Yet a recent paper has left the math world by turns stunned, delighted and ready to welcome a bold new talent into its midst, reports Quanta Magazine. Its author was Hannah Cairo, just 17 at the time, and was brought up in the Bahamas. She had solved a 40-year-old mystery about how functions behave, called the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture. “We were all shocked, absolutely. I don’t remember ever seeing anything like that,” said Itamar Oliveira of the University of Birmingham.
Friends For Life
The relationships built up between female mountain gorillas are more important than previously understood, new research from Rwanda suggests. It shows that when one of these social great apes moves into a new group, she will seek out and join another female she already knows. Scientists based the research on 20 years of data covering multiple groups of gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, in Rwanda. The scientists found that even when two females had been apart for many years, a newly arrived gorilla would still try to join a female she had formed a previous connection with. The findings, published in the Royal Society Journal Proceedings B, external, show how important the relationship between two individual females is in gorilla society.
Darth's Lightsaber
A lightsaber used by Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films has gone on display in London ahead of an auction where it is expected to sell for millions. The lightsaber featured in the climactic battles in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983) and could fetch up to $3 million. The piece of film history is now on display as part of a private exhibit at the Dorchester in London ahead of Propstore's auction in Los Angeles, taking place between 4 and 6 September. Also in the realm of fantasy worlds...
First Edition
An "astonishingly rare" first edition of The Hobbit has sold for a "record-breaking" £43,000 ($58,000) at auction. The copy of JRR Tolkien's novel is one of only 1,500 copies that were printed in 1937. It was discovered without a dustcover on a bookcase during a home clearance in Bristol, south west England. Caitlin Riley, the book specialist from the auction house, said: "It's the quintessential auction story. Everyone dreams of finding a rare item hidden in plain sight, and here we are." The Hobbit is one of the most successful children's novels, with more than 100 million copies sold.
Final Approval
The Italian government has given the final approval for the construction of a multibillion-euro bridge linking Sicily to the mainland - across the Strait of Messina - a project that has been a topic of debate since at least the late 1960s but has been held back by a litany of concerns, including the huge cost, seismic risks and mafia infiltration. Giorgia Meloni’s government has set aside €13.5bn to build what would be the longest single-span bridge in the world. A dream of Italy’s late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and revived soon after Meloni’s government came to power in 2022, the 3.7km bridge and its surrounding facilities are expected to take 10 years to build.
Webuild-Eurolink Image Library
Tiny Staircases
Two cities in the Netherlands are making waves - in a good way - with creative efforts to protect cats, hedgehogs and other small animals from drowning in urban canals. In Amsterdam, the city has approved up to €100,000 to install tiny wooden staircases along the canal walls, giving cats a way out if they accidentally fall in. The city will now work with the local animal welfare group to identify the most dangerous areas for animals before installing the escape routes later this year. Just a short drive away in Amersfoort, a similar initiative is already in motion. The municipality has begun installing around 300 small staircases designed to help animals safely exit the water from high quays and canal walls.
“A man who correctly guesses a woman’s age may be smart, but he’s not very bright.” Lucille Ball
On This Day
9 August 1173: In Pisa, Italy, construction began on a bell tower that became internationally famous as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Today's Articles
'Unsinkable Molly Brown': New artefact added to the exhibition in the Denver home, now a museum, of a Titanic survivor.
New Oxford Study: Climate policymakers have a perception mismatch with the wishes of the general public.
Mood Boosting Video
Serendipitous: Dog kept bringing rocks from the farmer's woods. When the owner discovered what they were, it changed his life overnight.
