WEIRD JOY
Peanut butter failed. Burnt coconut found a new species.
Two mice, one mountain valley, and twenty-two years of patient taxonomy.
SOURCEZooKeys / PubMed Central
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ALL THE SLOP
Every serving. No expiration date. Page 2 of 3.
PROGRESS
The ocean can take their land. It can’t take their country.
The first global political declaration on sea-level rise says an island state does not stop being a country because rising water makes its land uninhabitable.
SOURCEAlliance of Small Island States / United Nations
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PROGRESS
The last of 65 offshore turbines just clicked into place.
The final turbine is installed at Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt offshore project built to serve Rhode Island and Connecticut.
SOURCEConnecticut Governor’s Office / Revolution Wind
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PROGRESS
Kosovo spent 27 years clearing landmines. The job is done.
HALO Trust has concluded humanitarian mine clearance in Kosovo, 27 years after the war left fields, roads and villages contaminated.
SOURCEThe HALO Trust / Positive News
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PROGRESS
Germany wrote down how it will quit fossil fuels. Deadline: 2045.
Europe's largest economy published a sector-by-sector plan to leave coal, oil and gas behind, only the third country to do so.
SOURCEGerman Federal Environment Ministry / DW
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WEIRD JOY
Two new sea spiders turned up in the Salish Sea. One has hairy feet.
UBC divers found the first new sea spider species described in the Salish Sea in almost a century. One has red eyes and fuzzy-looking legs.
SOURCEUniversity of British Columbia
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PROGRESS
Nairobi revived two old libraries. Patronage jumped 240%.
Book Bunk and Nairobi City County restored Eastlands and Kaloleni public libraries as free civic hubs. Book Bunk reports patronage up more than 240%.
SOURCEBook Bunk Trust / Reasons to Be Cheerful
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WEIRD JOY
This one-gram robot can hop over a stair.
DirectHop uses a tiny motor and three folding legs to make controlled, repeated jumps. The prototype can clear a standard stair and twitch itself upright after a fall.
SOURCEUniversity of Washington / Newswise
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PROGRESS
On Leith Walk, bikes just outnumbered cars at rush hour.
During one May morning count, Cycling Scotland recorded more bikes than cars on Leith Walk from 8 to 9 a.m.—a first for that route, not a claim about the whole city.
SOURCECycling Scotland / The Scotsman
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WEIRD JOY
NINETY-NINE, IN SQUASH.
WEIRD JOY
A farm built a world-record Attenborough portrait out of pumpkins.
Sunnyfields Farm unveiled a giant mosaic portrait of Sir David Attenborough assembled from pumpkins, breaking its own world record for the largest pumpkin mosaic.
SOURCEBBC News
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PROGRESS
A WALL THAT BREATHES.
PROGRESS
They skipped the seawall and put 22 concrete arches in the lagoon instead.
A 200-foot eroded bank at Sebastian Inlet State Park got 22 honeycomb reef arches and up to 90 red mangroves instead of a wall — finished September 10.
SOURCESebastian Daily
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WEIRD JOY
THE CLEANING CREW HAS SHELLS.
WEIRD JOY
Alabama put 1,500 mussels to work cleaning a river.
About 1,500 rare native freshwater mussels — including two endangered species — were released into the Paint Rock River on August 25 after years of streambank repair.
SOURCEOutdoor Alabama
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WEIRD JOY
THE PATIENT KNOCKED.
WEIRD JOY
An injured pelican knocked on a NOAA lab door for help.
A brown pelican tangled in fishing line, with a treble hook in its wing and cactus spines in its foot, repeatedly tapped on NOAA’s Panama City Laboratory door. Biologists freed it in about 10 minutes, and it flew away.
SOURCENOAA Fisheries
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PROGRESS
FIFTY YEARS. NO DOG-MEDIATED HUMAN CASES.
PROGRESS
Chile just got WHO validation for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies.
Chile became the first South American country validated by WHO for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies as a public-health problem after more than five decades without a dog-mediated human case.
SOURCEWorld Health Organization
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PROGRESS
Côte d’Ivoire connected 3.56 million more people…
PROGRESS
Côte d’Ivoire connected 3.56 million more people to electricity in one year.
684,735 new connections. Around 3.56 million more people with access.
SOURCEAfrican Development Bank
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WEIRD JOY
THE LETTUCE LIVES UPSTAIRS.
WEIRD JOY
Alaska found the place vertical farming actually makes sense.
The brewery put a lettuce farm upstairs. In Skagway, that actually works.
SOURCEReasons to Be Cheerful
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WEIRD JOY
THE DINOSAUR LEFT RECEIPTS.
WEIRD JOY
A T. rex took four steps. 66.5 million years later, a teacher found them.
Four footprints. Twenty-three feet. One 66.5-million-year-old walk.
SOURCEJournal of Vertebrate Paleontology
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PROGRESS
CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE: 1. POTHOLES: 0.
PROGRESS
New York filled its 200,000th pothole. Yes, that counts.
Two hundred thousand holes became not-holes.
SOURCENYC Department of Transportation
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WEIRD JOY
EIGHT LESSONS. NEARLY 2,000 SCHOOLS.
WEIRD JOY
Kindergarten PE now includes learning to ride a bike.
An eight-lesson learn-to-ride curriculum is now in nearly 2,000 US elementary schools. Balance bikes first, pedals when you are ready, gym class credit either way.
SOURCEAssociated Press
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PROGRESS
THE MAP WAS THE PROBLEM.
PROGRESS
The world map is finally admitting how big Africa is.
Africa was not small. The map was weird.
SOURCEAssociated Press
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PROGRESS
RUBELLA, OFF THE LIST.
PROGRESS
Thailand just knocked rubella off the public-health list.
Decades of vaccination and surveillance turned a dangerous pregnancy infection into a preventable public-health victory.
SOURCEWorld Health Organization
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WEIRD JOY
A SHED FULL OF GLOW.
WEIRD JOY
The glowworms came back. A garden shed was involved.
After a century away, tiny green lights are blinking again in North Yorkshire.
SOURCEThe Guardian
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PROGRESS
STONE IS LOAD-BEARING AGAIN.
PROGRESS
They built a high-rise out of stone. Like, structurally.
The future of lower-carbon construction might involve a material humans have been stacking for thousands of years.
SOURCEDezeen
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WEIRD JOY
HE BOUGHT THE MARQUEE.
WEIRD JOY
Rick Steves bought his hometown movie theater so it wouldn’t die.
A century-old neighborhood movie house just got a very determined new owner.
SOURCEKNKX Public Radio
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