Eclectic global collection of uplifting news nuggets.
UFO Study
There's nothing like good old UFO talk to get people's eyes rolling, but it's becoming more and more common among policymakers and military officials to take talk of UFOs seriously, and that includes academics. Now, a remarkable new study published in the journal Humanities and Social Science Communications surveyed 1,460 US academics and found that almost 20 percent of tenure-track faculty have personally observed or know someone who has observed a so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), which is the official US government designation for a UFO.
Positive Thinking
A new study shows that a positive attitude about ageing can help recover mild memory loss.
People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are 30 percent more likely to reverse symptoms if they think positively about ageing, according to a study carried out by the Yale School of Public Health. The study was conducted over twelve years and involved 1,716 participants aged 65 and above. MCI is usually considered a one-way process, but according to Professor Becca Levy, lead author of the study, that’s not the case at all, “Most people assume there is no recovery from MCI, but in fact half of those who have it do recover.”
Short Haul Ban
A ban on short-haul domestic flights has come into effect in France, in a bid to curb carbon emissions. It feels like a portent of the near future for many countries. The new rule means flights between cities where the same journey could be made by train within two-and-a-half hours are prohibited.
Fourteenth Amendment
The latest US Postal Service stamp honors Chief Standing Bear, the 19th century Native American leader whose 1879 lawsuit established that Native Americans are people under US law and entitled to the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Kicked off their land in Nebraska, the Ponca were forced by the Army to walk to Oklahoma. When he tried to return home to bury his son, who died on the journey, Chief Standing Bear was arrested and imprisoned. He sued the federal government for violating his constitutional rights. While the government argued that he could not sue because he “was neither a citizen, nor a person,” his legal team cited the Fourteenth Amendment and the rights it affords to all citizens. “For so long people didn’t know his story or the Ponca story - our own trail of tears,” said Candace Schmidt, chairwoman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. “We are finally able to tell his story of perseverance and how we as a tribe are resilient.”
Health Success
Did you know that Rwanda has one of the most successful public health programs in the world? According to GlobalHealth.org, life expectancy increased from 49.7 years in 2001 to 69.6 in 2022, over 90 percent of the population has health insurance, thousands of new clinics have been built in the last two years, and it's on track to meet all the MDGs on maternal mortality, malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS.
Ukraine's Energy
Over seven months, the 650 workers building DTEK’s US$450 million Tyligulska wind farm in southern Ukraine often had to dive into underground bomb shelters as Russian missiles and drones attacked nearby. By mid-March, the first stage of Ukraine’s newest renewable energy project was completed and the turbines began to generate electricity a few weeks later. The project is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Now complete, the wind farm tells the European Union that Ukraine is determined to become a green-energy export power.
“The real problem of humanity is that we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” E.O. Wilson
On this Day
30 May 1922: The Lincoln Memorial - honouring Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and “the virtues of tolerance, honesty, and constancy in the human spirit” - was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
It's being tested as a way of removing greenhouse gas from the atmosphere for centuries to come. Biochar...
Mood Booster
Groomsmen pull a wedding prank when they pretend to have lost the wedding ring.