Quick summary of the top good news stories from last week.
Highest Peaks: A 23-year-old Brit has become the youngest woman to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre-plus peaks.
Diamond Shift: The volume share of lab-grown diamonds sold in US jewelry stores is now 46 percent. Lab-grown diamonds are growing more popular because they’re cheaper and clear of the labor abuses associated with mining.
World's Biggest Museum: Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum is finally opening. Slowly.
Not a Pipe Dream: President Biden has announced $2.6 billion in funding to replace all lead pipes in the United States as part of a new EPA rule that will require lead pipes to be identified and replaced within 10 years using the new funding from the Infrastructure Act.
Medicine & Wellbeing
Breakthroughs: Doctors are hailing 'amazing' trial results that show a new drug combination stops the advance of lung cancer for over 40 percent longer than the standard treatment, as well as a 'remarkable' new treatment regime for cervical cancer that reduces the risk of dying by 40 percent, the biggest advance against the disease in 25 years.
Eliminating Trachoma: India has now officially eliminated the blindness disease. Globally, India joins 19 other countries that have been confirmed by WHO as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem.
Wildlife & Conservation
Australia Leads: Over 10,000 square miles of additional protected area will be added to Australia’s far southern territorial waters. Coupled with other expansions of existing marine sanctuaries, it puts Australia on course to have 52 percent of its ocean territory protected -more than any other nation.
The Aurochs Effect: A rewilding charity is releasing a herd of large cattle-like tauros into the Scottish Highlands to mimic an ecological role played by their extinct wild ancestor, the aurochs - refilling a vital but empty ecological niche.
New US Marine Sanctuary: A new 4,543 square mile area off the Central California coast has been officially designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary by NOAA. The third-largest in the nation, the sanctuary will prohibit new gas and oil exploration and is the first ever designed with the involvement of Indigenous groups.
Space
Space Communications: NASA has successfully sent a laser signal about 290 million miles, potentially transforming our exploration of the solar system. It's way more efficient than radio, the current communications tech.
Wildfire Detection: Google, Muon Space and the Earth Fire Alliance have announced that they will launch FireSat, a constellation of satellites that will monitor Earth’s surface for wildfires, updating imagery every 20 minutes. It will be capable of detecting fires as small as five square meters, catching them before they turn into forest-devouring conflagrations.
Environment & Clean Energy
Mexican Boost: President Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, has pledged to boost renewable energy production to make up 45 percent of power generation by 2030.
Bubble Car: Micro cars make a lot of sense for commutes in busy cities, and they don't come much cuter than this bubble EV that's now in production in Europe.
Coal Below Half Its Peak: Countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s have reduced their coal by half for the first time since it peaked in 2007, reports Ember. Coal generation fell to 17 percent of total OECD electricity generation in 2023, a 52 percent reduction from its peak of 37 percent in 2007. Solar and wind generation accounted for 87 percent of the decrease in coal generation.
Jet-Setter Tax: A jet-setter tax on Europe’s frequent flyers could slow global heating and raise €64bn ($70bn) a year at no extra cost to most people, says a new study.
Google Goes Nuclear: Google has signed a “world first” deal to buy energy from a fleet of mini nuclear reactors to generate the power needed for the rise in use of artificial intelligence. It hopes the deal will provide a low-carbon solution to power datacentres, which require huge volumes of electricity. Amazon is doing something similar.
EV Sales Soar: Last month, a record-breaking 1.7 million all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars were sold globally, an increase of 30 percent year-on-year and 150,000 more compared to the previous record in December 2023, reports InsideEVs. The first nine months of this year have seen 11.5 million EVs sold globally, up 22 percent compared to the same period last year. So much for the 'slowdown'.
World's Largest: China's Sany Renewable Energy has just erected the world's largest onshore wind turbine featuring 430-ft-long blades (131 m), making for a maximum swept area of 616,298 sq ft (57,256 sq m) - about 11 American football pitches. It's capable of generating enough electricity to power 160,000 households for a year.
And Finally...
Last Week's Weirdest Story: Paraglider Spots Dog at Top of Great Pyramid of Giza - and films it.