Synopsis of last week's most important good news highlights.
Cancer Success: An experimental treatment developed at Israel's Hadassah-University Medical Center has a 90 percent success rate at bringing patients with multiple myeloma into remission. It's an innovative treatment against a disease which has long been considered incurable.
Ducking Hell: Apple has announced that it will upgrade its autocorrect feature that “annoyingly corrects one of the most common expletives to ‘ducking’”. The “ducking” substitution is a “longstanding source of mirth or frustration”.
Smartphone Ban for Young Children: On the principle of strength in numbers, parents in an Irish town have banded together to collectively tell their children they cannot have a smartphone until secondary school - when children are at least 12 or 13 years old.
Great Barrier Reef: A new initiative is being hailed as "a globally significant moment for ocean conservation".
Good News on Plastic: Delegates from 180 countries just took the first concrete step toward a legally binding treaty to regulate plastic - described as the most important green deal since the 2015 international climate agreement in Paris. The agreement could put the world on a path to actually tackling the global plastic pollution problem as soon as 2025.
End of Mosquito Bites? Scientists in Israel have developed a super-repellent that can stop 99 percent of mosquitos from biting your skin. The formula is a combination of two natural components: indole, a fragrant substance found in flowers, and a polymer called cellulose. The team hopes to bring the new repellent to the market next year.
Space Solar Beam: Space-based solar could solve a lot of Earth's clean energy problems because an orbital solar setup doesn't get affected by weather conditions and can harvest sunlight 24/7. And now, for the first time, solar power from space has successfully been beamed to Earth.
Amazon Rainforest: Brazil’s President Lula has announced that his government will completely stop deforestation by 2030. Brazil is the sixth-largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, according to Climate Watch, nearly half of which come from deforestation.
ID. Buzz: VW's retro electric camper van has now gone on sale in the USA.
Aussie Logging: The Australian state of Victoria has announced that the logging of native forests will stop at the end of this year. Even the most optimistic activists weren't expecting this victory. The announcement includes significant funding for a just transition for forestry workers.
'Extinct' Butterfly: The species, declared extinct in Britain nearly 100 years ago, has suddenly re-appeared. Small numbers of black-veined whites have been spotted flying in fields and hedgerows in south-east London, after officially becoming extinct in in 1925.
Magical Day: Four children have been found alive after surviving a plane crash and spending weeks fending for themselves in Colombia's Amazon jungle. Colombia's president said the rescue of the siblings, aged 13, nine, four and one, was "a joy for the whole country". The missing children became the focus of a huge rescue operation involving dozens of soldiers and local people. President Gustavo Petro said finding the group was a "magical day". Mr Petro said the siblings were receiving medical attention - and that he had spoken to their grandfather, who told him "the mother jungle returned them".
Dynafin: Engineering giant ABB has announced the development of a new propulsion system that mimics the movements of a whale tail, which it says reduces ships’ energy consumption by more than a fifth.
Fabulous Fungi: Scientists have discovered how a ‘jaw-dropping’ subterranean carbon sink made entirely of fungi pulls down more than a third of global CO2 emissions each year – enough to cancel out China’s annual toll. Mycorrhizal fungi networks hold 13 gigatons of CO2, making them the “most effective carbon capture storage unit in the world,” according to experts at the University of Sheffield, UK, who led the study.
The Pace of Solar: New calculations from FutureCrunch, demonstrates heartening news on the accelerating rate of solar power:
1 GW per year in 2004
1 GW per month in 2010
1 GW per week in 2016
1 GW per day in 2023
Solar energy is forecast to be the world’s largest single source of electricity by 2027.
Heat Pump Satisfaction: More than 80 percent of Britain's households that have replaced their gas boilers with an electric heat pump are satisfied with their new heating system, according to the first major survey of heat pump users. The 'myth-busting' results have to be good news for the UK’s fight against climate change.
Indiaah! Focusing on growing renewables, India won’t consider proposals for new coal plants for the next five years, reports AP. Energy and environmental experts are celebrating the news from a country that is currently reliant on coal for around 75 percent of its electricity.
That's this week's round up! Why not share it with friends and family and spread the good news...
Today's Articles
'We Are Not Alone': There's nothing like UFO talk to get people's eyes rolling, but it's a hot topic in Washington at the moment.
One Country Triumphs: One country has just triumphed over all the rest in the Decanter World Wine Awards 2023.
GiRaft to the Rescue: Nine giraffes have been rescued as rising waters threatened their island home.