- 2 days ago

Good News Tuesday

An eclectic global collection of upbeat news stories to get the day off to a bright start.

Cristiano Ronaldo, footballer — Cristiano Ronaldo

First to a Billion

Cristiano Ronaldo has hit one billion total followers across his various social media accounts - making him the first person to reach that mind-boggling figure. The number is calculated by combining his total number of followers across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Chinese social media sites Weibo and Kuaishou. It does not equate to one billion individual followers, as many people will follow him across multiple platforms, and some will be fake accounts, known as bots. All the same, one expert described it as a "staggering number."

Pen, a 6-year-old penguin who went missing at sea — Credit: Gekidan Penters/ X

Lost And Found

Pen, a 6-year-old penguin went missing at sea before a typhoon hit Japan late last month. Because Pen was born and raised in captivity, the odds of her surviving in the open water were slim. “I couldn’t help but feel despair,” Ryosuke Imai, one of Pen’s carers at the Gekidan Penters zoo, told CNN. As fate would have it, though, the torrential winds and rain actually helped Pen avoid both collisions and getting caught in fishing nets, since no boats could be out on the water. The typhoon also provided her with enough hydration and cooling to keep her safe until she was spotted swimming about two weeks later, roughly 8 miles from where she went missing. “She survived because of the typhoon,” Imai said of Pen, who was found well-fed, with no injuries, and in good physical shape. “It was almost miraculous timing.”

Koreawood

The South Korean government plans to build a new development dedicated to all things entertainment - including film and TV production, K-pop incubation, and gaming - in order to create a cultural hub and jumpstart tourism. Korean content has exploded in popularity all around the world. By building its own version of Hollywood, South Korea seems to be betting on entertainment as a key export for future growth - both culturally and economically. It could be ready for action by 2035, if production goes as planned. Meanwhile, elsewhere in South Korea...

The newly developed 16 cm²-sized transparent solar cell module — Glass that generates energy

Solar Glass

Researchers have developed a new method that can directly charge a battery from a smartphone screen. Developed by a research team affiliated with South Korea's UNIST, the method can directly supply energy from glass of buildings, cars, and mobile devices through transparent solar cells. The new type of transparent solar cell and module is claimed to offer high efficiency and maintains glass-like colourless and transparent properties - by introducing an ‘all-back-contact’ design that places all the components of the solar cell on the back. It has achieved high efficiency and aesthetics that transparent solar cells must have at the same time.

Wildlife Crossings

With more than 40 underpasses and three overpasses already built, Colorado is leading the way in wildlife crossing construction. Those crossings, paired with long stretches of wildlife fencing to funnel the animals to the safe passageway have reduced wildlife-involved crashes by around 90 percent, reports Denver 7.

Swift Watch

The Vaux's Swift is a tiny bird - some people call it “a cigar with wings.” But every fall these little birds make a big trip, from summer breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest down to their winter home in Central and South America. Along the way, many of them roost as a big flock in chimneys up and down the west coast. And their murmurations in the air - and simultaneously dive together into chimneys - are so spectacular that they draw crowds. In Portland, Oregon the past couple weeks, crowds turned out night after night to see these little birds go to bed. It’s part of an annual tradition known locally as “Swift Watch.”

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see." Mark Twain

On This Day

17 September 1787: The U.S. Constitution was signed by 39 delegates of the Constitutional Convention. The delegates included many of the leading figures of the period. Among them were George Washington, who was elected to preside.