Thursday's collection of good news nuggets from around the globe.
New Zealand is celebrating a population explosion of its emblematic kiwi following a successful pest-trapping scheme on the country’s northernmost tip. In a “listening blitz” – where acoustic monitoring devices were dotted around 200,000 hectares on the North Island – scientists found that 50 percent of sites that were silent in 2016 had kiwi calling in 2021. “That’s pretty cool,” said Kiwi Coast co-ordinator Ngaire Sullivan. OGN couldn’t agree more. Perhaps this will also help towards finally providing New Zealand with the long-awaited kiwi emoji the tourism board has been calling for.
Silent tree activity, like photosynthesis and the absorption and evaporation of water, produces a small voltage in the leaves. In a bid to encourage people to think more carefully about their local tree canopy, sound designer and musician Skooby Laposky from Cambridge, Massachusetts, has found a way to convert that tree activity into music. You can check out the tree music yourself by listening to his Hidden Life Radio. OGN particularly likes the sounds of the Red Oak Tree.
In good news for early adopters and everyone who wants to go back to the days of folding phones, Samsung is taking a big step towards making folding-screen smartphones mainstream with the launch of a pair of the first water-resistant models as part of its big tech event for the second half of 2021.
An Australian company has produced a seaweed-based dietary supplement for dairy and beef cows that eliminates 80 percent of the methane content emitted by the animals. If only 10 percent of global cattle herds consumed the supplement, created by FutureFeed Ltd, it would be the same as taking 50 million cars off the roads.
Do you know the carbon footprint of your last meal out? If you book a table at Jikoni, chef Ravinder Bhogal’s restaurant that celebrates ‘immigrant cuisine’ in the heart of London’s Marylebone, the answer will be zero. That’s because since 2019, Bhogal and her husband, Nadeem, have been working to achieve carbon neutrality across their business and, having done so, will become the first UK independent restaurant to receive an accreditation.
Hats off to a real-life Soprano who went from New Jersey gang member to musical star after videos of him singing to patients at the hospital where he worked went viral. 28-year-old Enrique Rodriquez now works as a phlebotomist (ferrying blood samples from different laboratories) at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and also began singing and playing the piano for critically ill patients in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. He has successfully left behind a history of violence and crime to help people who are suffering.
Did you know that camels have three eyelids protecting each eye? Two of those eyelids have bushy eyelashes. Thats good news for camels as it helps keep the sun and sand out of their eyes.
Dive in Deeper
Good week for The Weeknd
The Canadian singer has broken the record for the longest-charting song in the US, with his song Blinding Lights – first released in November 2019 – spending 88 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It's still at no.18 so should have many more weeks in the Billboard charts. If you don't know the song or haven't seen the video, now's your chance!