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."
Kamal Meattle on how the Indian government has taken NASA research on “growing” fresh air in confined spaces, and used it to increase productivity by “over 20%” in New Delhi offices… Above: The money plant that is quite literally, a “money plant” — helping to increase office productivity in tropical climates by over 20%. Creative [...]
The British Library has launched a fine new website dedicated to children’s games and rhymes in the 20th century. Click on Browse Games and then “Hear From The Researchers” to view six video interviews with researchers working on the topic. Further reading: Wikipedia — Children’s Street Culture
CBS Despatch reports from the beautiful old city of Sana’a, the 2,500 year old capital of Yemen. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is being restored with local techniques and materials, by local craftsmen. Picture: eesti.
Bill Stone talks about his work leading large expeditions to explore and photograph the world’s deepest caves. To go where humans cannot, he has also invented innovative autonomous exploration robots, planned for use on the NASA mission to find life on the moon Europa.
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.
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.
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 new PBS documentary on the recreation of Iraq’s vast marshlands. This beautiful and thriving part of Iraq was drained and destroyed by the dictator Saddam Hussein, and the Marsh Arabs were cruelly persecuted. The PBS file is not available outside the US due to ridiculous territorial ‘licensing restrictions’. It is also available elsewhere as [...]
Composer and Inventor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin takes you on a tour of the AlloSphere, a stunning building-sized new way to see and manipulate scientific and medical data. Artists are working alongside the scientists and engineers, to create new ways of visualising and ‘hearing’ useful data feeds.
 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) |
