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Good News Friday

Updated: Aug 26, 2023

Celebrating the end of the week with a global round-up of positive news nuggets.


President Joe Biden
New National Monument

President Biden has designated a new national monument to preserve almost one million acres of public land around Grand Canyon National Park. It’s a huge victory for Arizona lawmakers, Tribes and advocates who have pushed for years to protect the area from uranium mining, reports CNN.


Smaller Steps

Overwhelmed by the thought of 10,000 steps every day? The good news is that a new study has found that taking just 2,337 daily steps is enough to reduce the risk of dying prematurely. Since the 1960s, 10,000 daily steps has been “touted as a magical number for staying fit and healthy”, said The Times. But a study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, has found that anything above 2,337 steps a day saw a significant reduction in the risk of dying from heart diseases or stroke and walking at least 3,967 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from any cause. Although, it remains true that the more you do the better...


Holy Car Auction!

A rare 1960s Batmobile toy has sold for $149,000 after an unlikely bidding war. The open-top tin toy, in red rather than the traditional black, was made by Yonezawa in 1966 for the Japanese market. The Caped Crusader is at the wheel.


Debt for Nature

Earlier this year, the Galápagos Islands struck the world's biggest 'debt for nature' deal at $1.6 billion, now the African nation of Gabon is following suit and will wipe $450 million off its national debt by agreeing to increase protections of its marine ecosystems. It will use it to expand its network of marine reserves that protect numerous threatened marine species.


Proposed new stadium for Bath, England
Credit: Apollodorus Architecture
What a Great Idea

British studio Apollodorus Architecture has designed a Colosseum-like stadium for the city of Bath (known for and named after its Roman-built baths), in south west England, as a response to a proposed redevelopment put forward by Bath Rugby. The studio proposed the redesign of the recreation ground site in the centre of Bath, which is currently being redeveloped. A final development brief was recently submitted for the project that has a rectangular shape and long, straight roofs, which Apollodorus Architecture argues are "at odds with Bath's animated roofscape". The studio proposes an oval shape that references Roman amphitheaters, and believes this would merge more organically with the context and heritage of the surrounding city than the proposed stadium.


Downward Trend

The downward trend of deforestation in Brazil continues, with a decline of 42 percent since January, and that trend looks set to continue as eight Amazonian nations met in Belém this week to discuss how to increase protection of Earth’s largest rainforest. The 'rare conclave' was a positive start and a joint declaration created an alliance to combat deforestation, but left each country to pursue its own conservation goals.

 

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." Herman Melville

 
On this Day

11 August 1942: American actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for an electronic device that minimized the jamming of radio signals; it later became a component of satellite and cellular phone technology.

 





 
Mood Booster

Comedy Special: Dummy hypnotises ventriloquist with hilarious consequences.



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