Fab Friday News
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Wrapping up the week with a global collection of positive news nuggets.
Barbie 2
As well as being the biggest hit of 2023, the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever ($1.5 billion) and the 18th highest-grossing film in history, Barbie is also Warner Bros’s best-performing film. A sequel, therefore, had seemed a foregone conclusion. Director and co-writer Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, her writing partner and husband, have now revealed they do indeed have an idea for a sequel - they just need to get Ryan 'Ken' Gosling and Margot 'Barbie' Robbie to agree terms and work will commence on Barbie 2.
Record Numbers
Texas has surpassed its annual Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nesting record. Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are the world’s most endangered sea turtle species, and 692 nests have been found along the Texas Gulf Coast so far this year, surpassing the previous annual record of 449 nests set last year.
Country Changes Name
With 12,000 residents, Nauru is the world’s third-smallest country by population size, after Tuvalu and Vatican City. The tiny coral limestone atoll in the Pacific was colonized by Germany and later administered by Australia before becoming an independent republic in 1968. Nauru has now changed its name to the Republic of Naoero, matching the spelling and pronunciation in the national language. The country became known internationally as Nauru only because its local name was difficult for foreigners to pronounce and was a matter of convenience rather than one of choice. The change "seeks to more faithfully honour our nation’s heritage, our language, and our identity.”
First Time Ever
There's no denying it: This has been the summer of country music. Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas has become the song of America's summer and broken numerous records. And now, it's the genre itself that is dominating the Billboard Hot 100. For the first time in history, country songs claim all Top Five spots, thanks to singles from Langley, Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift, Stella Lefty, and a Wallen-Langley duet. It's a never-before-seen feat that even the Nineties heyday of Garth Brooks and Shania Twain couldn't accomplish.
Life’s a Beach
In good news for people looking for sunbathing spots: A popular bathing beach near Naples, Italy, is cracking down on beach-hoggers with a “dawn sweep” on umbrellas, sun loungers and deckchairs left on the sands overnight, said The Guardian. Authorities in Torre del Greco said items belonging to so-called furbetti dell’ombrellone (umbrella cheaters) “were continuously occupying the beach, effectively reserving a spot for the owners’ return”. The town’s “umbrella cheaters” face a potential fine of €500 ($577), as well as a “bureaucratic ordeal” to get their confiscated items back.
Martian Honeycomb
As NASA’s Curiosity trundled along a Martian valley called Valle Grande, it sent back images of a landscape covered in honeycomb-like textures. “We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Called polygonal fractures, small patches of these geometric shapes have been spotted several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande. A variety of processes can contribute to these honeycomb textures. Some of the polygons the rover has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks. Other possibilities include cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.
US Heat Pumps
Of all new homes built last year in the USA, 46 percent were completed with heat pumps, just 1 percent below other more traditional systems like water boilers, gas furnaces, and air conditioners. Heat pumps use the process of changing a liquid to a gas and back again to cool and heat air that’s pumped into the house or building they service. They generate substantially fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a gas furnace or burning heating oil, and because they rely on electricity, can take advantage of renewable energy.
"One man can make a difference and every man should try." Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
On This Day
7 August 1420: Construction begins on the dome of Florence Cathedral, designed by Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. August 7, 1420. This monumental project featured a groundbreaking double-shell structure and was built without traditional wooden scaffolding. It's still the world's biggest masonary dome.
Today's Articles
Opening Move: Connecticut set America's first state speed limit, instigating the country's patchwork of limits.
Mood Boosting Video
Close Look: Juvenile gorillas intently watch a chameleon.