Tuesday's Upbeat News

21 minutes ago

Some tasty bite-sized chunks of positive news to perk up the day.

LA Trees

Trees are often called the “lungs of the Earth,” and another recent study backs that up. The research out of Los Angeles found that the city’s trees are even more generous when it comes to carbon dioxide storage than expected, absorbing 60 percent of daytime CO2 emissions in the spring and summer and about 30 percent annually in the study area.

mRNA Vaccine

Results from a small clinical trial are showing promise for a personalized mRNA vaccine to treat pancreatic cancer. Right now, fewer than 13 percent of people live more than five years after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis - in this trial, half of the participants mounted a lasting immune response against their cancer cells. Before mRNA vaccines became widely used for Covid, researchers had already been developing the technology for cancer treatment. This version of the vaccines teaches a person’s immune system to recognize and attack tumors, turning the immune system into a cancer-fighting machine.

Star-Spangled Banner

Many Americans learned in elementary school the tale of Francis Scott Key penning the words to The Star-Spangled Banner during the War of 1812, when he was inspired by the sight of the American flag flying over Maryland’s Fort McHenry after the British bombarded it. Key then set the poem to the melody of a popular drinking song (written, ironically, by English composer John Stafford Smith). It wouldn’t be until over a century later, however, that the song became the country's official national anthem. The first step took place in 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order designating it as such. Then, this week in 1931, Congress passed a bill confirming that order, which President Herbert Hoover signed into law.

Home Kitchen restaurant's front window — Credit: Home Kitchen

Remarkable Restaurant

Michelin-starred chef Adam Simmonds has a lot to celebrate when he looks back on his career as a chef. But Home Kitchen, Simmonds’ high-end restaurant in London’s Primrose Hill, is especially notable. From truffle mash topped with guinea fowl to winter fruits poached with red wine, the restaurant boasts a number of mouthwatering dishes - but it’s Home Kitchen’s staff that makes the restaurant exceedingly rare. In a world-first, everyone in the fine-dining establishment - whether they are seating tables or chopping vegetables in the kitchen - has experienced homelessness. The restaurant itself is a nonprofit organization, which supports Soup Kitchen London’s mission to feed 150 people every day.

Remote Rustic Irish Cottage Wins Michelin Star: Quite an achievement for a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Photos Credit: Pompeii Archaeological Park

Pompeii Megalography

Archaeologists in Pompeii have uncovered a series of nearly life-size frescoes spanning three walls of an ancient banquet hall. Set against a ruby-red backdrop, the wall paintings depict female followers of Dionysus - the Greek god of wine and ecstasy - engaged in secretive cult rituals. Known as a megalography - a Greek term for a large-scale painting - the banquet hall fresco was uncovered at the newly excavated House of Thiasus. It dates to the first century B.C.E., more than 100 years before Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. and cast pumice and ash down upon Pompeii. “In 100 years’ time, today will be remembered as historic,” Alessandro Giuli, the Italian culture minister, told reporters at the unveiling of the wall paintings. “Alongside the Villa of the Mysteries, this fresco forms an unparalleled testament to the lesser-known aspects of ancient Mediterranean life.”

Tiny public park on a street corner in Nagaizumi, Japan — Credit: GWR

Too Small For a Picnic

There’s a public park on a street corner in Nagaizumi, Japan, though you’d never know by the looks of it. The “park” measures 2.6 square feet, roughly the size of four pieces of paper. It looks tiny even for a plant bed. But you can attempt to fit on its single tiny bench and say you visited the Guinness World Record holder for smallest park in the world! Inspired by the former smallest park, Mill’s End in Portland, Oregon (that one boasts a single tree), the new miniature champion was built in 1988 but was never officially measured by the record fiends at Guinness until recently.

Appetite for Organic

The UK’s appetite for pesticide-free produce is on the rise, despite the cost of living crisis. A new report by the Soil Association showed that sales of organic produce increased in the UK by 7.3 percent in 2024, compared to 4.7 percent for non-organic produce. The Soil Association said the figures were a further sign that people are voting with their wallets when it comes to sustainable farming, particularly “Gen Z shoppers, who are increasingly motivated by healthy and sustainable choices and seeking out organic products”.

"Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal." Fred "Mister" Rogers

On This Day

Frances Perkins, U.S. secretary of labour in 1933

4 March 1933: Government official Frances Perkins was sworn in as U.S. secretary of labour in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; she was the first woman appointed to a cabinet post.