Ensuring the week gets off to a good start with a global round up of positive news.
Air Guitar Roo
Congratulations to Australian photographer Jason Moore on winning the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2023 with this image. “I was driving past a mob of Western Grey Kangaroos feeding in an open field that was filled with attractive yellow flowers. I had my camera with me, so I stopped to grab a few photos. I suddenly noticed this individual adopt a humorous pose - to me it looks like he's practising strumming on his Air Guitar.”
Bike Bus
Inspired by initiatives in Barcelona and London, the 'Bike Bus' movement has gone global with new cities like Cape Town, New York and Florida jumping on board the trend. In August, Oregon legislated the Bike Bus Bill to help schools employ crossing guards or adults to lead walking school buses or bike buses.
Street Trees
City parks departments and non-profits across the U.S. are providing training for volunteers to plant, prune, and care for street trees, says the Washington Post. Thousands of volunteers are working to make a significant contribution to urban tree maintenance, reporting it as a ‘labour of love.’ One tree-tender said: "It’s hard to save the rainforest, but you can save your community, which is part of your city and part of your world."
Terrier Mothers Kittens
Following from our recent article about a Jack Russell terrier that, remarkably, managed to survive in the Colorado mountains for 72 days, OGN has discover a devoted Jack Russell that's become an unlikely mum to six abandoned kittens - and is even producing milk for them. Two-year-old Teasel stepped up when owner Sue Stubley took in the kittens from a neighbour, after they were abandoned by their own mother. She quickly embraced her newfound role and for the next three weeks Teasel was cleaning, snuggling, and nursing the kitties. Initially, Sue didn’t want to let the dog anywhere near the kittens. “I was scared she was going to go for them,” said Sue. “I was letting her sniff them and then she licked one of them. Then I realized she actually just wanted to cuddle them, rather than maim them.” Now she’s looking after them completely. “It’s amazing.”
Keeping Pizzas Hot
E-bikes may be an eco-friendly, economical form of transportation, but they're also slower than cars. So, how might an electric-bike-delivered pizza stay hot? In the case of Domino's Pizza's the answer lies in an integrated Pizza Pod oven. For the most part, the e-bike looks looks like any other, but the Pizza Pod on its rear end, however, sets it apart. That insulated, electrified compartment incorporates a fan-forced ceramic oven that keeps its pizza payload at a temperature of 68 ºC (154 ºF) throughout the ride. Problem solved!
Comms Upgrade
Remarkably, NASA has been communicating to and forth with space using radio technology that hasn't changed much since the Apollo missions of the 1960s. By relying on old-fashioned X-band radio systems, crewed and robotic missions suffer from bandwidths and transmission speeds that are ridiculously small and slow. For example, the data from the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby of Pluto took 16 days to download! Happily, that's about to change as NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment has succeeded in sending and receiving communications via laser beam. This will transform how spaceships communicate with each other and with Earth in the near future. The test data was beamed about 40 times further than the Moon is from Earth, from the recently-launched Psyche spacecraft to the Palomar Observatory in California - it took about 50 seconds.
It's The Little Things
Here's what musician Nick Cave says about the power of small actions: "The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous. Remember that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time and space, changing everything. Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning, and of vast consequence, and that they constantly impact upon the unfolding story of the world, whether we know it or not."
“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank
On This Day
27 November 1895: Through the will drawn up by Alfred Bernhard Nobel - the Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite - the Nobel Prizes were established on this day in 1895.
Radical new approach for achieving nuclear fusion being tested. Could this be the solution? NearStar...
Another collection of amusing jokes to get the week off to an entertaining start. It's good to laugh...
Mood Booster
A Joy Story - Oscar Winning Animation. See how life can change when our perspective changes.