Celebrating the end of the week with a global round up of positive news stories.
Annual Weigh-In
Animals at London Zoo are being checked and measured as part of its annual weigh-in day. The zoo staff will need to gently tempt every mammal, bird, reptile, fish and invertebrate, from Humboldt penguins to camels and lion cubs, by strategically placing food next to the scales to check their health and wellbeing. Data is then added to the Zoological Information Management System. It is shared with zoos around the world and helps zookeepers compare information on threatened species. Angela Ryan, head of zoological operations at London Zoo, said the weigh-in, which began on Monday and can take up to a week, will form an important part of gathering data to help protect animals in the wild.
Robotaxi Milestone
Waymo has just disclosed that it’s now giving more than 100,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across its three main commercial markets in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. The figures were shared by Waymo in a social media post on X. The new 100,000 figure is double what the company has previously disclosed. Waymo has reached that milestone with a fleet of hundreds of fully autonomous and electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.
Abundant Harvests
Global crop supplies are surging, driving prices much lower than in 2022-2023. The Bloomberg Commodity sub-index for grains and oilseeds has dropped to a four-year low, down 50 percent from its 2022 peak after Russia invaded Ukraine. Compared to a decade ago, 2024-25 is projected to see global harvests up 10 percent for wheat and rice, 15 percent for corn, and 30 percent for soybeans.
Gold Bars
For the first time ever, a bar of gold is worth a cool one million dollars. The milestone was reached when the precious metal’s spot price surpassed $2,500 per troy ounce, an all-time high. With gold bars typically weighing about 400 ounces, that would make each one worth more than $1 million.
Stupid Questions
“If you ask a stupid question, you may feel stupid; if you don't ask a stupid question, you remain stupid,” says Tony Rothman. Or, here's how Jordan Peterson puts it: “If you’re in a crowd and you ask a stupid question, 80 percent of the people in the crowd have the same question. They’re just too cowardly to ask. But you ask and then someone actually tells you, you never have to ask that question again. You’re no longer stupid, so if you ask enough stupid questions because you’re honest, well, then you’re not stupid anymore.” Heck, maybe you’re even smart. Moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to ask 'stupid' questions.
Global Inequality Down
It's generally accepted that while inequality between countries has fallen in the last few decades, inequality within countries has risen. New research by economists from Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York now suggests that the situation is even better - that if you combine tax data from rich countries, and unadjusted household surveys from poorer ones, within-country inequality has been falling for the better part of a decade, if not more. "Our message is an optimistic one. Not only has inequality fallen dramatically across countries, as has been recognised now for decades, but it has also stopped rising and started declining on average within countries as well. Both within- and between-country inequality are helping global inequality decline. World poverty is also declining rapidly for a large set of reasonable poverty lines and faster than estimated by the World Bank."
“Friday afternoon feels like heaven.” El Fuego
On This Day
23 August 1946: "The Big Sleep" directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart (Philip Marlowe) and Lauren Bacall, premieres.
Today's Articles
The Sceye HAPS: Huge silver solar blimp set to boost internet speeds, amongst other services from the stratosphere.
Hilarious Tweets: Funny musings on parenting, marriage, Christmas and children mispronouncing words.
Mood Boosting Video
If My Life Was a Movie: A young couple spent a month in Lofoten, Norway - their best summer ever. So, they made it into a movie.
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