Oct 9

Positive News Wednesday

Ensuring the day gets off to an upbeat start with a global collection of positive news stories.

John Dough

Pizza Hut aims to help you in the hunt for your next job with a project they call ResZAmes. Understanding that 75 precent of resumes are never read, they’ve come up with the idea of printing your resume directly on a pizza box, making it practically impossible to ignore. Even better, the company will deliver the box (and hot, fresh pizza!) to your prospective employer of choice free of charge, provided they’re located in New York City. The idea of your very own customized pizza box, spelling out your work experience, while holding an irresistible cheese pizza would make it impossible for an employer to overlook. Take a look at Pizza Hut’s website for more information.

Klamath River flowing where Iron Gate dam once was

Swimming Freely

For the first time in more than a century, salmon are swimming freely along the Klamath River and its tributaries, just days after the largest dam removal project in US history was completed. Researchers determined that Chinook salmon began migrating on 3 October into previously inaccessible habitat above the site of the former Iron Gate dam, one of four towering dams near the California-Oregon border that were demolished as part of a national movement to let rivers return to their natural flow and to restore ecosystems for fish and other wildlife.

Bookies Favourite

Chinese avant-garde author Can Xue, 71 is favourite to win 2024 Nobel prize in literature. With odds of 10/1, the author of Love in the New Millennium, who was also the favourite last year, leads a pack that includes Haruki Murakami and Margaret Atwood. The recipient of the 2024 prize will be announced on tomorrow, and will receive 11m Swedish kronor (approx $1 million). The Nobel prize in literature has been awarded 116 times since 1901.

Screening Americans

For the first time in decades, the FDA is considering approval for a new, safe sunscreen ingredient. Other countries have been using bemotrizinol for decades, and experts hope its approval will bring new, popular sunscreens on the market and help reduce skin cancer.

Wear Sunscreen: Baz Luhrmann - the Australian movie director and general auteur - had a hit with a song in 1997 called Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen). It's a 'spoken' song that resonates rather well today (and it's not all about sunscreen!).

Winter is Coming

In good news for Brits, the risk of winter blackouts in Great Britain has tumbled to its lowest in four years even after the shutdown of the UK’s last coal plant, thanks to investments in low-carbon electricity sources. The National Energy System Operator expects Britain’s winter power supplies to outstrip demand by almost 9 percent this year in its base case scenario, the greatest margin since the winter of 2019 to 2020.

Lunar Space Station

NASA has announced that its forthcoming Gateway lunar space station - an outpost designed to house astronauts in the Moon's orbit - just passed a critical milestone. According to the agency, Gateway's Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) successfully passed a grueling round of tests which mean HALO won't crumble or crack under the extreme conditions it'll face in lunar orbit. HALO is one of "four pressurized Gateway modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for missions to the lunar South Pole region," per NASA's announcement. Gateway aims to mark the first sustained human presence on and around our Moon - one of the core goals of NASA's ongoing Artemis program, and perhaps a stepping stone in humanity's efforts to send humans to Mars.

“I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.” Dr. Maya Angelou

On This Day

9 October 1888: Built between 1848 and 1884 and dedicated in 1885, the Washington Monument - a marble-faced granite obelisk that honours the first U.S. president, George Washington - opened to the public in Washington, D.C.