Positive News Thursday
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- 4 min read
Today's tasty collection of bite-sized good news nuggets.
Fancy a Royal Residence?
Long before it inspired scenes in Netflix’s historical drama The Crown, a rambling country house in West Sussex, England, served as the private escape of Princess Margaret and her husband, photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, better known as Lord Snowdon. Hidden within more than five acres of gardens, the centuries-old retreat became the backdrop for royal weekends, celebrity-filled parties, and one of the most talked-about marriages of the 20th century. Known as The Old House, the property dates to 1481 and was gifted to Armstrong-Jones by his uncle, artist and stage designer Oliver Messel, shortly before he married Princess Margaret in 1960. Although the couple maintained an apartment at Kensington Palace, Snowdon transformed the once-dilapidated cottage into a secluded country retreat where aristocrats from across Europe mingled with artists, writers, and actors. The property is now on the market for the first time in its history, listed with Blue Book Agency for £3.95 million (about $5.3 million).
Royal Estates Where You Can Stay The Night: If you want a taste of aristocratic life, here’s a handful of royal residences that any commoner can stay in, even if just for a few nights.
Love What You Do
Meet Lee Jong-yeol, the living embodiment of the phrase, “Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” The 88-year-old is South Korea’s first master piano tuner, affectionately called the “piano doctor,” and he has no plans to retire. He’s invented his own tools to keep the concert grand pianos in tune, gently turning each of the 200 strings inside to locate the perfect pitch. He doesn’t use computers or anything digital to measure the pitch; he just trusts his ear.
MS Breakthrough
Amid other symptoms, one hallmark of multiple sclerosis is lesions and scarring it leaves on a patient’s brain and spinal cord. Researchers have long known that damage specifically to the brain’s grey matter is a key driver of the disease’s progression. But until now, MRI scans used to monitor patients with MS have only been able to detect lesions in the brain’s white matter, so treatment options have been solely focused on those lesions. With the help of AI, scientists at the University of Buffalo have now found a way to reveal grey matter lesions, too, in a significant breakthrough for treating the disease.
It's Back, Again
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved books about growing up on the American frontier in the late 19th century are receiving the television treatment - again. More than 40 years after the hit series Little House on the Prairie went off the air, Netflix is bringing viewers back to that Kansas prairie log cabin where Ingalls spent much of her childhood (by way of TV magic, that is: the wholesome new show was filmed primarily in Canada). All eight episodes, based on the third Little House book, dropped last week, and the series has already been renewed for a second season.
Global Green Economy
Companies that derive a significant portion of profits from environmental solutions make up what’s known as the “green economy,” and a new report found that they just topped $10 trillion in market value. The milestone came after 5.3 percent growth last year. For the past decade, green companies have outperformed the overall market by around 12 percent. It also comes despite the United States' retreat from investing in climate solutions and amid global volatility, demonstrating the resilience of the technology and industry overall.
Surfing Along Nicely
BYD’s low-cost Seagull EV, sold as the Dolphin Surf in Europe, is getting another update with a longer body and a more powerful motor. Starting at just 69,800 yuan, or about $10,000, the Seagull is BYD’s smallest, most affordable electric car in China. Sold as the Dolphin Surf, the electric hatch starts at just £18,675 ($25,000) in the UK and €22,990 ($26,000) in Europe, making it one of the most affordable in its class. According to CleanTechnica, the BYD Seagull/Dolphin Surf is the fifth-best-selling electric vehicle in the world through the first five months of 2026, with over 125,000 units sold. Here are the Top 10 selling EVs in the USA.
“Politeness is the flower of humanity.” Joseph Joubert
On This Day
16 July 1661: First banknotes in Europe are issued by the Bank of Stockholm. The bank issued paper "credit notes" as a practical alternative to Sweden's notoriously heavy, cumbersome copper-plate coins. While revolutionary, the system ultimately failed because the bank over-issued the notes without adequate metallic reserves to back them. This led to a collapse in public confidence and the bank's liquidation in 1667. However, the experiment directly paved the way for the creation of Riksens Ständers Bank (now Sveriges Riksbank) in 1668, which holds the title of the world's oldest surviving central bank.
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