Today's smorgasbord of tasty bite-sized chunks of uplifting news.
Skijoring
Welcome to skijoring: an extreme - and quirky - winter sport that celebrates the unlikely melding of rodeo and ski culture in the U.S. Mountain West. It’s a heart-pumping, white-knuckle competition in which horses tow skiers by rope at speeds that can top 40 mph over jumps as high as 8 feet and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that’s cut in half. Every winter, thousands of people converge on the old mining town of Leadville, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains - elevation 10,158 feet - lining downtown’s main street and packing the saloons to witness one of the most popular skijoring races in the country. The spectacle, billed as “The Granddaddy of ’em All,” has been a tradition here since 1949.
Oldest in South America
Archaeologists have discovered the earliest dated cave paintings in South America in Argentine Patagonia, dating back 8,200 years. The 895 paintings were found in a 630 square meter (6,781 square foot) rock shelter about 1,100 km (684 miles) southwest of the capital Buenos Aires. The archaeologists said the discovery indicates that the production of cave art began in the cave about 8,000 years ago and that the practice of painting the particular pattern seen in the cave was sustained for a period of at least 3,000 years.
World's Largest
World’s largest rooftop solar power plant is to be built in Denmark after Danish solar company SolarFuture landed the order to establish a 35 MW rooftop solar power plant at a new logistics center in Horsens. The building is over 300,000 m2, an area that makes it the world’s 5th largest building - of which the majority of the roof surface will be covered by solar panels. Construction has just begun and is expected to be completed within 12 months.
Double WOW
The Queen of England was presented with her own look-a-like Barbie doll as she hosted a Buckingham Palace reception. “Brilliant. You’ve taken about 50 years off my life,” she said of the doll, which was dressed in an identical outfit to Camilla. Clearly there had been plenty of discussion behind the scenes! The doll was presented to the Queen by the Women of the World Foundation (WOW), which was celebrating the end of its Girls Festival Bus Tour.
Richest Generation
In an unprecedented financial shift, millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) are on the cusp of becoming the richest generation in history, with $90 trillion expected to be passed down to them over the next two decades. This transfer of wealth, highlighted in Knight Frank’s 2024 Wealth Report, promises to reshape the economic landscape and alter the current power dynamics heavily influenced by the baby boomer generation. The report, drawing on recent findings, forecasts a seismic change in the distribution of wealth, with millennials positioned to inherit assets that will significantly elevate their financial standing. This generational wealth transfer is not merely a redistribution of existing wealth but signals a broader transformation in the avenues for wealth creation.
Octocoral
Scientists exploring one of the remotest parts of the ocean are baffled by a new discovery - found with 100 new species of marine life - whilst searching the pitch-black depths of the largely unchartered waters of Bounty Trough, which plunges to a depth of 15,748ft to the east of New Zealand’s South Island. The rich haul of life also included an unknown type of octocoral. Octocorals are a group of marine animals that includes sea fans, sea whips and soft corals. The “octo” part of the name denotes that they have polyps with eight tentacles. Explorers think they have found not only a new species of octocoral, but potentially an entirely new genus. The creature is so unusual that it has “baffled” scientists, according to Ocean Census, an environmental NGO, which led the deep sea expedition.
Solar Dethrones Coal
According a new analysis from Wood Mackenzie on the levelized cost of electricity for the Asia Pacific region, the cost of renewables reached a historic low in 2023. Renewable energy costs in Asia last year were 13 percent cheaper than coal and are expected to be 32 percent cheaper by 2030. Utility solar is now the cheapest power source in 11 out of 15 APAC countries. New-build solar project costs are expected to fall by at least another 20 percent by 2030.
"If you can't do it with feeling - don't." Patsy Cline
On This Day
13 March 1781: English astronomer William Herschel observed this day in 1781 the seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus - first described by him as “a curious either nebulous star or perhaps a comet” and named for the father of the god Saturn.
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Mood Booster
Little kitten and tiny chick sweetly sleeping together.