Some tasty bite-sized chunks of upbeat news to get the day off to a bright start.
New Discovery Peru
The remains of what is thought to be a 4,000-year-old temple and theatre have been discovered by archaeologists in Peru, reports ArtNews. These discoveries predate the country’s most well-known archaeological site, Machu Picchu, by approximately 3,500 years. Machu Picchu was an ancient city built by the Inca Empire in the 15th century CE. The site also predates the pre-Inca Moche and Nazca cultures. “We don’t know what these people called themselves, or how other people referred to them. All we know about them comes from what they created: their houses, temples, and funerary goods,” says Luis Muro Ynoñán. “The people here created complex religious systems and perceptions about their cosmos. Religion was an important aspect of the emergence of political authority.”
Unprecedented Pace
Electricity industry association Eurelectric has released figures showing that 50 percent of public electricity generation in the EU came from renewables for the first time in the first half of 2024. The association said Europe was decarbonising at an unprecedented pace, with 74 percent of power coming from "renewable and low-carbon energy sources," which includes nuclear power, marking "a significant increase" compared to the 68 percent share in 2023, Eurelectric said. "The pace of change is impressive."
Skywalkers: A Love Story
If you’re afraid of heights, you may want to skip this one. Skywalkers centers on a couple who spend their free time scaling some of the world’s tallest buildings -entirely harness-free (and typically without permission). Featuring footage shot across seven years and six countries, the Netflix documentary follows the lovebirds as they prepare for their most challenging climb yet: a 2,227-foot super-skyscraper in Malaysia. Click to watch the trailer if you dare.
Mercury's Diamonds
New simulations suggest that a 9-mile-thick layer of diamonds may lurk deep below the surface of Mercury. The gems almost certainly can't be mined for bling but the findings - published in the journal Nature Communications - may help solve some of the planet's biggest mysteries. Like why does such a tiny planet (that appears to be geologically inactive) have a magnetic field?And why does it have unusually dark surface patches that NASA's Messenger mission identified as graphite, a form of carbon?
Little 'Teaspoon'
Spoonbills return to part of England for first time since 17th century. Driven out by hunting and habitat loss, the birds are now nesting and breeding in a few pockets of the countryside. With their long, spoon-shaped beaks, it is perhaps little surprise that the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has nicknamed the offspring of a spoonbill a 'teaspoon'. It has been a bumper year for the snow-white wading birds, which have been found nesting and breeding in Cambridgeshire for the first time for over 300 years.
'Dairy' Made From C02
Savor, a California-based startup backed by Bill Gates, has a system that converts carbon dioxide from the air into fats that mimic the taste and texture of traditional butter to create dairy-free alternatives to ice-cream, cheese, and milk - with a significantly lower carbon footprint than animal-based products. The synthetic butter could potentially come in at less than 0.8g CO2 equivalent per calorie, compared with animal-based unsalted butter with 80 percent fat, which has a standard climate footprint of 16.9kg CO2 equivalent per kg. Bill Gates has said: “The process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good - like the real thing, because chemically it is.”
"The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest... It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become." Lady Bird Johnson
On This Day
23 July 1999: With the launch of NASA's orbiter Columbia, U.S. astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.
Today's Articles
Up Close And Personal: If you've ever wondered what flowers see when they are pollinated by hummingbirds, this is as close as it gets.
Olympic Fashion: With the Paris Games kicking off on Friday, fashionistas are saying that Mongolia has already scored a win.
Electrified Trailer: Clever idea does not require the trucks themselves to be modified, yet radically cuts fuel use.
Light Pillars: Mysterious lights appear in the night sky over Japan. The reason isn’t to be found in space, but in the sea.
Mood Boosting Video
Teahupo’o: The 2024 Olympics surfing wave in Tahiti, French Polynesia.