Smorgasbord of good news nuggets to get the day off to a bright start.
This shot of snow hummocks with the ice backlit by the midday sun at Lake Baikal in Siberia was voted the public’s favourite in the recent Weather Photographer of the Year awards.
Karaoke in exchange for free taxi ride: Taxi driver in Taiwan offers free rides in return for singing karaoke, and uploads the films to YouTube to earn a nice little bit on the side. But, hilariously, doesn't tell his passengers that the speakers are on the outside!
He was born and bred in Oxford. And, at the age of 82, Brian Pinker on Monday became the first person in the world to receive the Covid-19 vaccine created and manufactured in Oxford. The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has justifiably hailed the jab as “the single biggest stride that we've been able to take since this pandemic began." It is no idle boast. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine represents a real game-changer within the UK and beyond. That it is to be sold at cost price to developing countries in perpetuity, is an admirable way for Britain to reposition itself, post-Brexit, on the international stage.
All 12 Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college results tomorrow, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend their move on television, says CNN. Happily, the (yet another) attempt to overturn Trump’s defeat seems doomed, a piece of political theatre mounted by party grandees eager to court supporters loyal to the president before, in some cases, mounting their own runs for the White House.
Meanwhile, legendary reporter Carl Bernstein says that Trump's efforts (recorded on tape) to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" votes to overturn the election results in the state is "worse than Watergate," calling it the "ultimate smoking gun" tape. See CNN's interview with Bernstein.
The importance of One Health: The world’s most impoverished communities don’t need to be told that intact ecosystems are vital to their health. Healthy ecosystems = healthy humans! This inter-connectivity needs to be moved up the agenda and the good news is that this is now starting to happen.
One afternoon Aurora Bennett, 3, went missing from her house in Queensland, Australia. More than 100 State Emergency Service volunteers and members of the community formed a search party and started scouring the woodlands and hills in the area. By night time there was still no trace of Aurora. Her family was really worried as the weather got cold and it started raining. Aurora was found safe and sound the next morning thanks to the 17 year old family dog Max. He's nearly deaf and partially blind but he stayed with the girl overnight, and it was him who responded to the shouts of people from the search party and led them to Aurora. For his loyalty and keeping the girl safe, Max was declared an honorary police dog.
Sucking CO2 from the air for jet fuel: A simple, yet potentially world-altering method of sucking CO2 from the air into airplanes where it is converted directly to jet fuel is described in a new paper published in Nature.
Melody Ormond, 22, was transferring to the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga as a sophomore when she gave her grandma, 75-year-old Pat Ormond, an idea. Why not join Melody and enroll at the same school? She did. After three years of hard work they have just graduated together.
Birds can dance! Enjoy this enchanting little video... guaranteed to perk up your day and put a smile on your face.