POSITIVE NEWS plus a dash of the freshest visual arts and literature...
Your Editor "My mission is to hand-pick the best good-news stories."
Rachel Sussman has been photographing the world’s oldest living things, all around the planet. She gave an excellent one-hour lecture (MP3 link) for the Long Now Foundation in November 2010. Her photo gallery can be viewed online here. Above: La Llareta, up to 3,000 years old — found in the Atacama Desert, Chile, South America.
271 works by the artist Picasso have been found in France. They were stored in the garage of electrician Pierre Le Guennec, who claims they were given to him in lieu of payment for work done on Picasso’s various residences. The works include completed paintings including nine Cubist works, as well as notebooks and drawings.
Eden Bayer talking about his in-production commercial system for replacing polystyrene packing blocks with mushroom fibre blocks. His production plants already provide Fortune 500 companies with bio-degradable packaging materials. These packing parts take just five days to grow, while feeding on local bio-waste such as oat husks. When discarded, they break down naturally in the [...]
There are around 500,000 ponds in the British countryside, and another two million in domestic gardens. Pond Conservation UK proposes to add another 500,000, 5,000 of them before 2012. Podcast | Project Website.
Macedonia (formerly in Yugoslavia, Europe), is planting seven million trees in one day in a bid to restore the ancient forests, and to repair the damage done by recent wildfires. This is the sixth tree-planting day — and the largest yet — in a campaign backed by the government, citizens and environmental groups. Since 2008, [...]
Industrialist Bernardo Paz Industrialist Bernardo Paz has created the most ambitious contemporary art museum ever — in the depths or the Brazilian jungle. Inhotim opened in 2006 and it currently features 17 galleries spread over 300 acres. The permanent collection alone totals around 500 large works. Above: Creative Commons photo by thefuturistics. 1,400 Inhotim photos [...]
A new type of scientific microscope has been invented. Whole living cells are fast-frozen and studied in their natural environment. X-rays are used to create 3D models in the new microscope, which was developed at the Institute for Soft Matter and Functional Materials in Berlin, Europe. Using their new system, the Institute can reveal the [...]
Hans Rosling’s 16 minute TED talk “The good news of the decade?”, looking at astonishing — and mostly unreported — pieces of front-page-worthy good news from the 2000s.
A group of British junior school children have launched Santa into space. Lift-off of their vehicle Spudnik2 took place near Landscove Church of England Primary School, Devon. Their craft reached as height of 17 miles, where photographs were taken, before Santa abandoned ship and floated back to earth by parachute. He landed in nearby Hampshire.
Tobacco. The evil weed? Perhaps future generations won’t see it that way, if the vast plantations of it can be used instead to produce a potent organic weed-killer. The Economist reports that Canadian scientists have discovered that ground, sieved and pressurised tobacco leaves produce a treacly oil — that proves to be an extremely potent [...]
 Romantically Challenged (USA) (UK) |
 The Naked Gardener (USA) (UK) |
 Amazing sequel to H.G. Wells's famous novella! On Amazon US. |
 The Lost Secret of the Green Man (USA) (UK) |
 Deedee Divine's Totally Skewed Guide to Life (USA) (UK) |
