Eddy's Good News: What really makes a view beautiful and reminder that recycling can be upcycling!

Virgin Radio

17 Jan 2022, 08:12

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!!

Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Friday 28th January 2022

Fascinating news from Germany and a study into why and how we know that a beautiful view is beautiful.

Say guten morgen to The Max Planck Institute who’ve been studying Empirical Aesthetics, or how the brain translates a visual signal and turns it into an aesthetic one. They hooked up twenty four subjects to MRI scanners and recorded their precise brain activity when they watched things that are perceived to be beautiful, landscapes and views of natural wonder and what they found surprised them.

They assumed it would be just the reward part of our brain where they’d find the aesthetic signals, but they also found them in the parts of the brain that recognise motion or process physical features around us. This might not sound like a big deal but it a) shows us that our perception of beauty goes back a very long way and b) helps us understand the link between our eyes and our emotions which will have a very real application in Artificial Intelligence. When Chris’s guest the other day talked about a future where we put on a virtual reality headset and not just see images but feel feelings - that is now one step closer.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Encouraging news from the US West Coast and a company that’s adding to the list of cool things to do with recycled, plastic bottles.

A reminder that recycling can sometimes be upcycling, we’ve had Good News stories in the past of plastic bottles being turned into homes in Africa, we’ve had them turned into roads that are tougher than traditional roads in lots of places. Now say hi to Los Angeles startup, ByFusion, who are turning them into huge building blocks for the construction industry. It’s a huge win because concrete is one of the worst and most CO2 heavy things on planet earth. These guys have already upcycled 103 tonnes of unrecycled plastic that was heading for landfill. Their process is pretty cool, they’ve invented a machine called a Blocker, which shreds then squishes and spins the plastic so hard and so fast that it all fuses together into one glorious multi coloured block. No glue, no mortar, no binder of any kind are used and the result is way more durable and infinitely more sustainable than traditional breezeblocks.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 27th January 2022

Inspiring news from the USA and a botanic garden who are celebrating the wonderful art of building childhood forts. 

Say howdy to Fortlandia which until the end of this month you can find at Lady Bird Johnson’s Wildlife Centre and gardens. It’s a celebration of the den, the fort, the refuge, those things we’ve all built in parks out of twigs and leaves, or on camping trips, with sturdier logs, or at home with boxes, cushions, anything we can get our hands on!Kids can get inspiration from things like “The Critter Shack” where they can meet and greet forest creatures, or a fort made entirely from bamboo, where children can crawl in safe and natural spaces. There’s even a fort tea-shack, full of child friendly kitchen equipment where kids can play at making tea for each other. It’s such a great idea and I really hope that somebody might hear this who works at a National Trust gardens or a petting zoo, or wildlife park and be inspired to do something similar - it’d be great for one of our bank holidays this summer!?

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

A fascinating new study from the USA into how babies navigate relationships with those around them shows us there’s a lot more to a slobbery kiss!

Anthropologists already know that humans who share food and therefore share saliva have what’s called a “thick”, rather than a “thin” relationship. We also know that babies and infants learn quickly and one of the things they need to learn is who around them will help them if they need something, whether that’s food, shelter or security.In a series of really clever tests with actors, dolls and a lot of drool, researchers at Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) have discovered that when babies do that thing where they put food in their mouth then offer it to you, it’s a test. Also when they give you a slobbery kiss, or put their finger in their mouth then on yours, your reaction tells them whether your relationship is a “thick” (for that read “strong”) or a thin one. So, further proof that babies and toddlers are way cleverer than they’re given credit for.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 26th January 2022

Visionary news from the USA and a pair of bright young sparks who had a brilliant idea to recycle glass by turning it into sand!

Say hello to Glass Half Full, an idea which started over a bottle of wine in New Orleans. It turns out that in America, hundreds of councils, including theirs, have stopped recycling glass, they just send it to landfills, where it never ever decomposes. So they had the simple genius idea to start a non profit - funded by donations - to collect glass, clean it and grind it back into beautifully coloured and super soft sand which can then be used in construction and to help mother nature out. Did you know that sand is in short supply? And places like New Orleans spend millions of dollars importing the stuff to build barrier islands and sandbars that are crucial in protecting the city from storms. Also to return much needed sediment to wetlands, which promotes native foliage, wildlife, soil health and CO2 storage, a win on so many levels and now Glass Half Full are the world’s biggest grassroots recycling program. I bet they’re glad they had the bottle to follow up their idea?!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Hilarious news from down under as a neighbourly joke goes viral. Say g’day to Carl Stanojevic who’s 54 and from Queensland.

He got a text from his neighbour to say “please can you take my green bin out?”, so Carl took him at his word and did just that. He took the bin to the beach, where he took a selfie with it and went surfing, they hung out together at the surf club, then he and the bin stopped off at a few restaurants for more pictures. Passers by thought the idea was very funny and stopped to take pictures and pretty soon the bin was a local celebrity! Carl took it for a massage, then to a tattoo parlour to get his neighbour’s number permanently tattooed on the front. Of course he went to the pub for a swift cold one on the way home, it would have been rude not to, then delivered the bin back to his neighbour with all the pictures and told him “you said take my bin out. If you’d had said put my bin out then today would have been just a normal day :)” Neighbour Nick was blown away and his bin is now a worldwide celebrity!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 25th January 2022

Great tech news from down under and a trailblazing new type of flameproof coating that is aiming to change the game in the wake of tragedies like Grenfell Tower and Notre Dame.

Say g’day to a research team at the University Of Queensland who’ve got their inspiration for what looks to be the best fire proofing ever from lava. Lava is liquid in its superheated state and although it looks like it’s on fire, it’s not actually flammable and when it dries it turns into a hard ceramic that doesn’t support fire.Traditional flame retardant sprays don’t work very well, they break down at high temperature, but this coating is really flame proof. If this stuff had been sprayed on the problem polymer foam then the Grenfell disaster would never have happened. You can even spray it on wood and it forms a fire shield that can protect precious historical buildings like Notre Dam, which went up in flames to the dismay of millions in France in 2019. They’ve got some further official testing to do before it becomes commercialised but we’re looking at around 3 years before this game changing spray will be available for builders and developers to buy.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Good news from the USA where the Swedish furniture giant IKEA has just bought 3,200 acres of forest destroyed by the latest hurricane so they can plant a new and more sustainable one.

IKEA has previous with this kind of thing, last year they bought 11,000 acres in Georgia to stop it from being cut down and developed. This time they’re planting a forest of longleaf pine, which will be great for biodiversity of the area and will, in about 40 years, sequester a good chunk of CO2 to offset part of their business. That business will benefit from sustainable timber production and vulnerable animals like the red-cockaded woodpecker, gopher tortoise, pine snakes, and dusky gopher frogs will all benefit from reliable habitat. This is part of a promise to become carbon neutral and along with electric vans and even a plan to buy back resell old furniture, that hopefully isn’t far away.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 24th January 2022

Very literally paw warming news from the USA and how cats and how Elon Musk is accidentally helping cold cats get considerably less cold.

Say hello to the Starlink satellite service, the reason why Elon Musk was firing all those rockets into space. He now has a network of 1,600 satellites in orbit, which collectively give his customers super fast and reliable internet. Of course you have to buy a dish at $500 and because Elon designed it, you expect it to be state of the art. It has solar technology to heat the dish, to melt the snow which interferes with the signal on cold days. But one of the cleverest men in the world hadn’t fully thought it through and considered how clever our pets are. The dishes work fantastically well until all the neighbourhood cats discover that if they sit in them, they stay cosy and warm. The internet is now being swamped with pics of up to five moggies sitting in one of Elon’s dishes. So expect the next generation of dishes to have anti-cat capability!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Great news from here in the UK as zoologists witness the largest congregation of fin whales ever recorded, which pulls into focus what a fantastic job marine conservationists have done because these magnificent mammals were critically endangered.

Fin whales are the second biggest animal on earth, after the blue whale and had been catastrophically targeted by whalers until the world started to put pressure on politicians and bans came in. National Geographic researchers have been tracking them near the Orkneys and reported that the sea was so thick with whales that day that the 80 plus foot long baleens created what marine biologist and whale expert Phillip Hoare described as a “misty forest of spouts, as tall as pine trees.” They gathered to feed together, it was a huge feast, like Christmas dinner for families and friends in fin whale world and If you follow the link here you'll see a mind blowing video of their fintastic new year feast :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Friday 21st January 2022

Good news from all over the world as we’ve discovered 70 news species in 2021, I’ve covered a few here already, but here’s a few highlights to warm your cockles.

Say hello to The Easter Egg Weevil, discovered on the mountaintop jungles of The Phillipines, the gorgeous Pink Pygmy Seahorse, found down under in Kiwiland, and a wonderfully rock n roll named Blue Guitarfish a gorgeous ray - therefore a member of the shark family - discovered by divers in Magagascan waters. All of these plus including 14 beetles, 12 sea slugs, nine ants, seven fish, six scorpions, five sea stars, five flowering plants, three more sharks, three spiders, two sea pens, one moss, one pygmy pipehorse, and one caecilian. What’s one of them? It’s a limbless, amphibian serpentine creature - looks like a snake, bites like a poisonous snake but isn’t a snake. See pics of this guy and those I’ve mentioned right here :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Very literally heart warming news from Sweden as we meet a 71 year old man who is alive only because of a revolutionary new way to deliver a life saving defibrillator - by drone!

He was shovelling snow in his driveway when he had a heart attack, in medical terms this is called an OHCA (Out Of Hospital Cardiac Arrest) and for very obvious reasons, this seldom ends well. In fact if you’re one of the 175,000 people in Europe that suffers an OHCA, your survivability decreases by as much as 10% for every minute untreated after that attack. Because these things almost always happen for away from a defibrillator only around one in ten survive. But because his neighbourhood was part of a new emergency autonomous drone delivery scheme, the fortunate man was being defibrillated just three minutes after his cardiac arrest and he’s now happy, well and very grateful. The game changing ‘Everdrone’ currently reaches 200,000 Swedes, is being rolled out across the country and to other places in Europe, fingers crossed here too!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 20th January 2022

Colourful news from Taiwan as we meet the man who saved his village from being levelled by painting the whole thing so beautifully that it’s become a tourist attraction!

Say ni-hao to Huang Yung Fu, a local hero, because 84 year old military vet loved painting spectacular coloured murals on his shoddy village walls, but 14 tears ago, when Huang found out the whole village was due to be demolished he went into a painting frenzy, and daubed every single wall, pavement and street in the most gorgeous, intricate and utterly charming designs using a palette of every colour in the rainbow. Very soon people started flocking to the village to witness the utter joy of every inch of it and the authorities had to call off the bulldozers. Now 14 years later, the so-called Rainbow Village is an internationally recognised tourist attraction that pays for itself, so it’ll always be maintained, and has even been dubbed Taiwan’s Most Instagrammable attraction. Have a look for yourself and feel the joy of colour and more importantly the love that went into it.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Pawsome news from the USA as we find out what happened to a cat that got accidentally given away to a junk shop in a reclining chair!

Say meow to Montequilla (which I think means butter) a ginger Tom from Denver Colorado who went mysteriously missing the same day as his parents donated a big reclining chair to a charity shop. Meanwhile in said shop, the staff could hear a strange and unfamiliar meowing sound, they traced it to the recently acquired chair, where ButterCat had secreted himself. They called Denver Animal Rescue who came out, scanned four year old Montequilla but to no avail, and they had no address for the chairs owners. Luckily, mum and dad realised that their cat loved to squeeze himself into his little cat cave within the chair and called the shop to see if their missing moggy had been relaxing in the recliner. Monty and his folks have now been reunited and their feline fellow is undoubtedly working on finding a new cat cave!

Via: hulldaily.co.uk

Wednesday 19th January 2022

Good news from The Scilly Isles as we meet the solar panel engineer who met the Queen and was stunned to get commissioned on the spot!

Say hello to George Goudsmit, who found himself in one of those lines at a royal visit event, he was briefed on how to greet Her Maj, how to address her, that the conversation would last at most thirty seconds and to please keep it brief. When our beloved monarch reached George, the inevitable question came: “what do you do?” - “I make solar panels your Majesty” said George and to his delight and surprise, the Queen said “maybe I should have solar panels at Balmoral?” Her son Prince Charles who has long been a champion of sustainability must be rubbing off on her at last because George’s company received an order for Balmoral soon after the thirty second conversation and they’re now talking about installing them at Buckingham Palace! Does that mean George can now put a ‘By Royal Appointment’ crest on all his stuff? George, good on ya either way!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Heartwarming news from here in the UK and a donkey that now thinks it’s a dog! Say “eeyore’, or more to the point “woof” to Kye, a three month old donkey and his parents John and Grazina who are from Skeg-Vegas.

When miniature donkey Kye got rejected by his mum they decided to rear him at home. First thing they did was invest in those doggo nappies, because - you know - nobody wants donkey sausages on their sofa ;) And, of course there was the bottle feeding by hand. Soon Kye felt like he was part of the family, and because that family includes dogs, Kye now thinks he’s a doggo, not a donkey and is exhibiting all sorts of pooch predilections. He comes running when the dogs are called, loves fetching balls and goes for dog walks, and walks on the heel, no different from his adopted canine siblings. Kye is now fit, well and ready to go into a paddock with other donkeys so he’ll start thinking like a donkey before long, but I’ll bet any money he’ll always come running when John whistles or if he hears the word “walk” :)

Via: bbc.co.uk

Tuesday 18th January 2022

Wonderful news from down under and an album of endangered bird songs that’s currently beating some of the biggest names ever in pop music to near the top of the album charts!

Say g'day to Bowerbird, a teacher and student collective from Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territories.They wanted to do something meaningful to help rare and endangered Aussie birds after Professor Stephen Garnett discovered in his research that one in six native Australian birds are threatened with extinction. He asked his students what they could do to raise awareness and the idea of an album of birdsong was given birth. Stephen asked one of his students, violinist Simone Slattery, to make a beautiful soundscape of fifty three endangered birds which forms one track on ‘Songs Of Disappearance’, with 53 bonus tracks effectively, in the individual songs of each bird. The idea has caught the Aussie public’s imagination, with the album hitting number 3 in the charts, , ahead of Taylor Swift, ABBA, Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé! And beating those guys at this time of year is impressive indeed! You can hear some excerpts if you follow the link right here :) 

Via: youtube.com

The only vaccines we hear about in the news these days are, well you know the ones, but what if I told you that pooch professors in Japan are working on a vaccine to cure people who are allergic to dogs?!

Dog allergy is more common than you might think, it affects between 10%-20% of people worldwide, in the US alone it’s estimated that 10 million people are allergic to their pets! For this reason it’s a real issue for some relationships, a lot of people split up with their partners, or never get together with a potential partner in the first place, because of their allergy to a dearly loved doggo. But hopefully soon that won’t be the case as we say konichiwa and arigato (thank you) to the University Of Osaka who’ve been using unprecedented X-Ray Crystallography to look at the allergens in doggos and they’ve reported that they’re now within reach of a ‘hypoallergenic vaccine’ that’ll ensure that if you meet the love of your life, but their woofer makes you wheeze, then the doggo won’t be a deal breaker!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 17th January 2022

Mind blowing and buzzing news from Texas and an amazing beekeeper who mostly doesn’t believe in protection, she relocates entire hives with her bare hands!

Say howdy to Erika Thompson, from Austin, who did what loads of people did and packed in her office job in 2019 to follow her dream of working with bees. She loves them and her company, Texas Beeworks are like the Ghostbusters of the bee world. If you’re in Austin and have a problem hive in your home, garden or bin - it happens - then Erika, the ‘Bee-Whisperer’ turns up and she’s so in touch with bees feelings that she can assess the mood of the hive and in most cases forego the need for a bee suit, she carefully deconstructs the combs and scoops the bees out and into her van, with her bare hands and relocates them to new hives in her bee sanctuary. She’s so respectful of her little furry, flying friends that she even refuses to sell honey from the hives. She thinks the bees made it, and they deserve to keep it, so the business is funded only by the charge for moving the hives. I’ve put a link up here where you can see awesome Erika in action. Also please don’t try this at home, she’s clearly got a super-power!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Inspiring news from the USA and a motelier whose acts of kindness to those in need of a roof over their head has snowballed in the most beautiful way.

Say hello to Brian Arya who helps his dad run a motel on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel five years ago after working there since 2012. Brian could see how desperate things became for homeless people in the pandemic, they flocked to his motel seeking help. So he started making funny videos for social media, tagging the motel as #HotelHell and people loved the videos so much that before long he had over 800,000 followers and he’s now using this massive media footprint to help New York and New Jersey’s most vulnerable. His followers are donating stuff and he’s giving rooms away to those who need them and at this time of year, that’s the difference between life and death for many. Food, toiletries, supplies, even cash started pouring in from good-wishers and the Hotel Hell and it's good deeds have become famous!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org