Positive News Thursday
Some tasty bite-sized chunks of upbeat news to brighten the day.
Morphing Tradition
You’re looking at the foamy festivities from Raisin Monday. Once upon a time, first-year students at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland thanked older students for mentoring them during the early weeks of school by giving them a pound of raisins. Six centuries later, the annual tradition has somehow become a giant shaving cream party filled with costumes and delightful chaos. “Getting to do something like this brings everyone together,” said Freya, a first-year student. Paloma Paige, association president for the students' union, said: "It's just evolved throughout the years and this has now become the quintessential part of the whole weekend."
Heirloom Varieties
Golden Delicious might get some competition on Austrian grocery shelves. The country is running a pilot scheme to revitalize long-forgotten apple varieties and test whether they can thrive in today’s commercial environment in regard to taste, growth, disease susceptibility, and shelf life. Only about 10 of the 2,000 apple varieties grown in Austria are found in supermarkets. To improve that ratio, an Austrian food retailer and a produce distributor have teamed up to bring two rare types to the forefront: Ilzer Rosenapfel and Falchs Gulderling, both of which date back to the 19th century. Meanwhile, in America...
The Appalachian Apple Hunter: 80-year-old man searches high and low for nearly extinct heirloom apple trees - many the last of their kind - and reintroduces them to the world.
Pipe Dream
The term “pipe dream” may sound like what the Nintendo character Mario thinks about while he’s sleeping, but according to Merriam-Webster, it refers to “an illusory or fantastic plan, hope, or story.” Today, it's simply an expression of the unlikely hope that someone’s far-fetched dreams will come true. But this turn of phrase actually originated in the late 19th century, though at the time, it had a provocative connotation. It came from the dreamlike state people would fall into after smoking an opium pipe (the 1800s version of opiates). People who smoked opium often experienced hallucinations, and the thoughts in that trance were called “pipe dreams.”
Butterfly Oasis
Claudia Galeno-Sánchez has spent the past two years transforming her Chicago home into a sanctuary and educational space for monarch butterflies. She has even painted her house with butterflies and, with native milkweed and wildflowers in her back and front yards, Galeno-Sánchez, her husband, and her two children spend the fall admiring the monarchs that visit as they make a nearly 3,000-mile migration journey to Mexico until late October. An immigrant herself, she’s found a kinship with the migratory butterflies and has even expanded her efforts throughout her community to nearby schools - she now has eight native plant projects and distributes milkweed plants to a community garden. Along with regulatory protections, grassroots efforts like this have helped make a huge difference for the survival of monarchs.
No Separation
Voters in Alberta have chosen to remain in Canada, declining to begin a process that could have paved the way for the oil-rich province to separate from the country. About three quarters of voters opposed beginning the process. The result bolsters Prime Minister Mark Carney's push for national unity amid Trump's trade war. Last year, when Trump suggested that the USA should absorb Canada, someone produced a patriotic video called "We Are Not The 51st Anything". OGN's Canadian readers may well have seen this update on a 20 year old Molson beer commercial, but sympathetic Americans (and others) may enjoy it too.
Win Win
China has connected its first 1-gigawatt clean energy project that combines solar panels with solar thermal. The project is expected to generate an average of 2.2 billion kWh of electricity annually, save about 690,000 tonnes of coal, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 2.07 million tonnes a year.
"Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success." Tom Petty
On This Day
22 October 1883: New York's original Metropolitan Opera House has its grand opening with a performance of Charles Gounod's opera Faust. Located on Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets, Midtown Manhattan.
Today's Articles
"Simply Astonishing": Experts just found a massive lost civilisation hiding in the jungle for 2,000 years.
Mood Boosting Video
Toddler Perseverance: This little girl's commitment to solving a problem is impressive.
