Today's Good News
- Editor OGN Daily
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Wrapping up the week with a global collection of upbeat news stories.
Record Breaker
A painting by Gustav Klimt has sold for a record-breaking $236.4m, making it the most expensive work of modern art sold at auction, and the second most expensive artwork ever sold - after Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $340m in 2017. The six-foot-tall painting, titled Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, was painted by the Austrian painter between 1914 and 1916 and shows Lederer, a young heiress and daughter of Klimt’s patrons, draped in a Chinese robe. Six bidders battled for 20 minutes at the Sotheby’s in New York. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was looted by the Nazis and nearly destroyed in a fire during the second world war, but in 1948 it was returned to Lederer’s brother Erich and remained in Erich’s possession for most of his life, until he sold it in 1983. The painting then became part of the private art collection of Estée Lauder heir Leonard A Lauder, who displayed it in his Fifth Avenue home in New York. Lauder died in June, aged 92.
Canine Characteristics
Users of Frolly, an app that matches dog lovers, can create a profile for their pooch as well as themselves for prospective partners to browse. Founder Cindy Himmel launched the platform in Charlotte, North Carolina, in October, but hopes to expand into other US cities soon. “The characteristics of dog owners - trustworthy, honest, responsible - those are some of the things that we would look for in a partner as well,” Himmel told The Washington Post.
Handy Guide to The New Dating Trends And Terms: That way, the next time you get "throned" by someone you were trying to "Shrek," you'll know exactly what's going on.
AI-designed Enzyme
A new AI-designed enzyme can break down 98 percent of polyurethane in 12 hours at industrial scale. Polyurethane is a type of plastic used in foam cushions, mattresses, insulation and other products. That's good news because the world produced 22 million metric tons of polyurethane in 2024.
Ancient Log Boats
Rare Bronze and Iron Age log boats unearthed upstream from a settlement dubbed 'Britain's Pompeii' have gone on display for the first time. The 3,000 year old vessels have been painstakingly conserved since their discovery in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, between 2011 and 2012. Three of the nine excavated boats form the heart of a new permanent exhibition at Peterborough's Flag Fen Archaeology Park. Visitors can see a 6.3m (20ft 6in) Middle Bronze Age oak vessel; a 2.2m (7ft 2in) fragment of a Middle Bronze Age oak boat with an intricate repair on its hull; and a 0.8m (2ft 6in) fragment of an Early Bronze Age boat made from maple. "They reveal that these simple yet supremely effective boats were used to navigate a fenland river for almost a millennium."
Ivory Ban
Researchers have examined the effects of China's total ivory ban on elephant poaching. The study analyzed data from 43 African and Asian countries between 2008 and 2021. The results show that elephant poaching decreased by approximately 50 percent after the ban took effect on January 1, 2018. The decline stabilized after one year and remained statistically significant. China was previously the world's largest market for illegal ivory. When the country closed all commercial activities involving ivory, demand in the illegal market decreased significantly.
Young "Genius"
Two new-to-the-public pieces by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach were recently performed for the first time in over three centuries. Despite being one of the most prolific composers of the 1700s, many of Bach’s works have been lost, misplaced, or tucked away in archives - but this week, two previously unidentified manuscripts were added to his oeuvre. The identification had been a long time coming: Researcher Peter Wollny found the scripts at Brussels’ Royal Library of Belgium in 1992, and after decades of investigation, he recently said he’s “99.99% sure” they’re among Bach’s early works, written when he was around 20, per the BBC. Dutch organist Ton Koopman played the organ pieces in a concert last week at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach is buried. “When one thinks of the young Bach or Mozart, it is often assumed that their genius came later - but that is not the case,” Koopman said. “These two works are of a very high quality that is hardly to be expected from such a young person.” Click here if you want to hear the performance...
"Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all." Frederick Buechner
On This Day
21 November 1783: The first crewed hot-air balloon flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, traveling from the Château de la Muette across the Bois de Boulogne on the edge of Paris in a balloon made by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier.
Today's Articles
Uplifting Quotes: Friday's the gateway to the weekend. Here are a dozen celebratory quotations to get you in the mood.
Mood Boosting Video
It's Good to Laugh: Collection of funny Swedish TV commercials.