Upbeat News Tuesday
Today's eclectic collection of positive news stories from around the world.
Pope Makes a Splash
In celebration of his 71st birthday, Pope Leo XIV has announced the opening of a new contemporary art exhibition at the Vatican Apostolic Library, in Rome. AQVA: Catastrophe and Wonder brings together the works of three modern artists and an abundance of old texts to explore water’s life-giving and destructive double nature. Open to the public from September 25 through May 14, AQVA is the inaugural chapter of a five-year exhibition series, Catastrophe and Wonder, that will explore historical threats to the written word - including fire, light, insects and humans - and invite visitors to “look beyond fear to discover new avenues of interpretation and artistic creation,” according to a statement from the pope’s library. The show is being held there in an effort to encourage in-person engagement.
It Started With One Bird
Protecting one bird created a conservation network in Ecuador. Ornithologist Robert Ridgely’s 1997 discovery of the Jocotoco Antpitta, a species new to science, led him to found the Jocotoco Foundation a year later. Nearly three decades later, the foundation protects and manages 19 reserves throughout Ecuador, covering about 50,000 hectares (193 sq miles), and manages a further 82,000 hectares of privately and communally owned land. Together, these sites are home to more than 1,350 species of birds - that’s 80 percent of all those found in Ecuador, and an astonishing one in eight of all bird species on the planet, as well as many other plant and animal species. At its Canandé reserve, cleared land left to regrow for three decades has recovered 90 percent of its original biomass and species count.
First in South America
Chile has eliminated dog-transmitted human rabies as a public health problem, a first for South America. That makes Chile the third country worldwide to achieve this status, after Mexico and Bhutan. No human case has been recorded since 1972, the product of five decades of free dog and cat vaccination, surveillance and rapid post-exposure treatment. “It shows eliminating dog-transmitted rabies is not only possible, but sustainable,” said PAHO’s Jarbas Barbosa.
A Collector's Dream
For four decades, this 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider, delivered new to actor Steve McQueen, has been tucked away as the centerpiece of a secretive New York-based Ferrari collection. Now, for the first time ever, this Prancing Horse is heading to auction, headlining the first Gooding Christie’s Rétromobile New York sale. “Of all the iconic cars owned by Steve McQueen, this has to be the most elusive and mysterious,” David Brynan, senior specialist at Gooding Christie’s, tells Robb Report. “Only shown twice in the past 40 years, and never offered before at auction, the car is as cool as its original owner.” When the car crosses the auction block on 21 November, it is estimated to fetch between $15 million and $20 million.
Laughing Dormouse
OGN couldn't resist showing you another fantastic image from the exhibition of the 91 award winning images captured over the years in the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The show is now open at the FRAMELESS gallery in Marble Arch, London, and runs until January 2027.
99.9 Percent
One of the perceived objections to wind energy is the recyclability of wind turbine materials at their end-of-life. In particular, turbine rotors are typically made from a composite material that’s difficult to break down. A new analysis of turbines decommissioned from the oldest wind farm in Scotland is giving new, hopeful insight: 99.9 percent of the materials have either been reused or recycled. And most of it happened within 30 miles of the site of the wind farm. The report found that 79.5 percent of the materials were recycled into polymers for construction materials, and 20.4 percent were reused.
"If wrinkles must be written on our brow, let them not be written on our heart. The spirit should not grow old." James Garfield
On This Day
22 September 1735: Robert Walpole becomes the first British "Prime Minister" (actually First Lord of the Treasury) to live at 10 Downing Street. At the time Walpole moved in, the building was actually numbered as number 5, and it was not renumbered to number 10 until 1779.
Today's Articles
Mood Boosting Video
Super-fast eagle attack filmed in ultra slow-motion.
