Celebrating the end of the week with an uplifting collection of positive news snippets.
Conservation Success
Thanks to added protections instigated in 2015, Finland's Saimaa ringed seals - one of the rarest species in the world - the population is now growing again. This year, courtesy of tighter restrictions on net fishing, a record 92 seal pups were born - beating last year’s record of 90 pups. It’s so encouraging to see conservation efforts have successful results like this - and should inspire us to keep working to protect endangered species around the world.
The penultimate in our series of collective nouns this week...
A Memory of Elephants
Easily one of the most evocative collective nouns is that for elephants: a ‘memory’. It’s bound up with the saying that “an elephant never forgets” because of their remarkable recall and intelligence.
Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are now available to purchase over the counter in the US for people 18 years or older with mild to moderate hearing loss. A federal law, first passed in 2017, went into effect this week, allowing high-quality hearing aids to be purchased at pharmacies and retail stores without the need for a prescription, medical exam, or professional fitting. And for a fraction of the traditional costs. An estimated 37.5 million Americans older than 18 have some level of hearing loss, and 28.8 million could benefit from hearing aids.
Scientists have published a paper finding that if US government health insurance provider Medicare bought 77 generic medications from Mark Cuban’s drug company, it could save $3.6 billion annually. Read on...
Foofaraw
A great fuss or disturbance about something very insignificant.
Stress Buster
The UK's Olympic gold medalist Tom Daley has found an unusual way to deal with the intense pressure of training and competing at the highest level. “I honestly think I owe the Olympic gold to knitting,” he said. Daley credits the meditative practice with helping him deal with stress during the Tokyo Olympics.
Ancient Star Map
Parts of the world's oldest known star map, long attributed to the second-century BCE Greek astronomer Hipparchus but never discovered, were found hidden in medieval Christian texts housed in northern Egypt, according to a paper published this week. Researchers analyzed filtered images of writings known to be palimpsests - where earlier texts are removed in a form of ancient recycling - using multispectral imaging, a technique that quantifies light data outside normal human vision. On one folio, or leaf of paper, researchers were surprised to find the coordinates of the constellation Corona Borealis (pictured), suggesting more of the map may be found using the technique on other documents. Hipparchus' star catalog is often cited as the basis of Ptolemy's "Almagest," a work that established the concept of the universe as Earth-centered for a thousand years.
Quote of the Day
"Autumn... the year's last, loveliest smile." William Cullen Bryant
On this Day
21 October 1959: The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.
The Orionid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow night in the northern hemisphere, and could yield 20 streaking meteors per hour. Read on...
Mood Booster
Glorious parody of The Dam Busters from Carling's "I bet he drinks" campaign, recognised as one of the funniest TV adverts of all time.