Some tasty bit-sized chunks of positive news to perk up the day.
Crafting Trees
Inspired by the natural forms surrounding him, Finnish artist Antti Laitinen works with his environment to create visually stunning works of art. The multidisciplinary artist has been creating his Broken Landscape series since 2017, taking advantage of his home in the countryside to find the perfect trees for his installations. While the final product, most often seen as a still photograph or video, may look like the work of clever photo editing, it most certainly is real. Laitinen spends hours crafting his work, using steel, wire, and other materials to carve out the desired shapes within the tree's tangle of branches. Combining surrealism and whimsy, these pieces evolve over time as seasons and weather change.
Boldly Going...
John McFall, a former Paralympian for Great Britain, has just become the first astronaut with a disability to receive medical clearance for long-duration space missions. The European Space Agency astronaut is now eligible to be placed on and train for a flight to the International Space Station. “This isn’t about me, this is way bigger than that,” McFall said. “This is a cultural shift. This is something that has not been done before. … I’m proud for me, but I’m proud of the mindset shift that this has achieved.” McFall had his right leg amputated after a motorcycle accident at the age of 19. Now 43 years old, he is an orthopedic surgeon with a Paralympic bronze medal for sprinting, which he won in Beijing in 2008.
Dolphins in NYC
In a remarkable sighting, a marine researcher and conservationist have just spotted two common dolphins swimming in New York's East River. The pair of dolphins were seen between Manhattan and Mill Rock. The sighting marks the latest evidence that clean-up efforts in New York’s once-notoriously polluted waterways are paying off; in late November of last year, a humpback whale was seen splashing around in the East River, according to a report by the New York Post.
Bridget v Barbie
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy has exceeded expectations at the UK box office, becoming the best-performing romcom in the UK on opening weekend ever. The fourth instalment in the adventures of Helen Fielding’s bumbling diarist made $14.9m (£11.8m) over its four-day opening weekend, beating all three previous instalments, the second of which, Edge of Reason, was the previous record-holder with $8.1m. However, while pre-sales were reported last week to have outstripped Barbie, in the end Michael Morris’s fourquel fell short of the £18.5m opening enjoyed by Greta Gerwig’s satire.
Keystone Species Revival
American buffalo were nearly extinct by the late 1800s. But thanks to years of steady efforts to revive them, grassland ecosystems in the U.S. are now reaping the rewards of boosted buffalo populations as their presence helps restore the ecosystem and everything it supports from the animals to the plants to the people. Since 2020, the Tanka Fund has facilitated the return of more than 2,300 buffalo to Indigenous communities. Buffalo are a keystone species, meaning the balance of their ecosystem is highly dependent on their presence. The animals’ return to their native habitat has helped revive some American prairie lands. “It’s exciting to see buffalo go back on that land and see the ranchers caring for the soil, the plants, and the animals and watching them restore their piece of property back to the natural state,” says a Tanka Fund executive.
The Power of Predators on Yellowstone's Ecosystem: “Wolves are to Yellowstone what water is to the Everglades.”
Underwater Cable
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has announced plans to build the world’s longest underwater cable project, which aims to connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions. The tech company said Project Waterworth involved a 50,000km (31,000-mile) subsea cable, which is longer than the Earth’s circumference. The cable would be the longest to date that uses a 24 fibre-pair system, and Meta said in a blog post: “Project Waterworth will bring industry-leading connectivity to the US, India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions. This project will enable greater economic cooperation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions." More than 95 percent of the world’s internet traffic is transferred through undersea cables.
"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." Galileo Galilei
On This Day
20 February 1962: John H. Glenn, the oldest of seven astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury spaceflight training (and later a U.S. senator), became the first American to orbit Earth, doing so three times.
Today's Articles
Mood Boosting Video
Mission: Impossible - Final trailer for The Final Reckoning. Out on 23 May.